"The Great October Socialist Revolution," says the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of January 31, 1977 , "was a natural consequence of social development and class struggle under conditions of monopoly capitalism." 1 Her victory marked a historic turn not only in the destinies of the peoples of our country. It shook the whole edifice of world capitalism, opened a new era in the development of mankind.
The historical regularity of the world's first socialist revolution is emphasized in the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU not by chance. In the context of the ideological struggle that has become particularly acute at the present time, bourgeois ideologues again and again try to prove that the October Revolution was caused exclusively by specific features of Russia and in no way reflected the main trends in the socio-economic and political development of society in the XX century. In this regard, the study of the prerequisites for the Great October Revolution is not only of scientific, but also of great political importance.
Even while speaking out against the Russian Mensheviks and the leaders of the Second International, who saw nothing but backwardness in pre-revolutionary Russia, V. I. Lenin showed that the proletarian revolution in Russia (despite its certain originality in comparison with the highly developed capitalist countries) is a natural result of the development of world and Russian capitalism. This peculiarity, he emphasized, lies "along the general line of world development, "2 because"the basic forces - and the basic forms of social economy - are the same in Russia as in any capitalist country, so these peculiarities may not concern only the most important things." 3 Lenin gave an in-depth analysis of the economy, social structure, and political system of capitalist Russia, and a brilliant description of the main classes of Russian society. 4 The historical merit of the leader of the Russian and world proletariat was the creation of a scientific theory of imperialism, the study of its nature, contradictions, and regularities .5 Lenin showed the vanguard role of the proletariat as the hegemon class of the revolutionary movement, and revealed its real allies in the struggle for democracy and socialism. He comprehensively developed the theory of the proletarian revolution, enriching it with a brilliant conclusion about the possibility of the victory of socialism initially in one, separately taken country.-
1 "On the 60th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution". Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of January 31, 1977, Moscow, 1977, pp. 3-4.
2 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 45, p. 379
3 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 39, p. 272.
4 For more information, see: "V. I. Lenin on the Social Structure and Political system of capitalist Russia", Moscow, 1970.
5 See "To the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". Theses of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Moscow, 1969, p. 13.
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nin was the first to rebuff Russian and Western European opportunists who tried to question the historical regularity of the Great October Revolution. It is enough to recall at least such works of his as The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, On Our Revolution, and many others, in which he attacked the falsifiers of Marxism, who grossly distorted the proletarian character of the October Revolution and tried to prove that it did not take place "according to Marx" and others like him. it cannot lead to the establishment of a socialist system in our country.
Based on Lenin's cardinal propositions about the historical background of the October Revolution, several generations of Soviet social scientists have comprehensively shown that Russia had a sufficiently strong and broad economic base for socialist transformation, which was formed mainly in the sphere of large-scale capitalist industry and was successfully used by the Soviet government in the course of building a socialist economy .6 As is well known, socialism is not born within the framework of the previous bourgeois formation. However, this does not mean that it grows from scratch. "No insurrection," Lenin emphasized, "will create socialism if it is not economically mature." 7 The socialist social system cannot function on a primitive economic basis, without large-scale machine production, a system of banks, an accounting and distribution apparatus regulating production and consumption, without a sufficiently developed communication system, etc. All these things taken together constitute the material prerequisites of socialism .8 They are created even under capitalism and especially intensively at its highest, imperialist stage, when a complex system of state-monopoly capitalism appears, which in economic terms can be called with good reason the threshold of socialism.
The material prerequisites for the socialist revolution are maturing extremely unevenly in different countries, and no scientist would undertake to determine precisely the stage of maturity of capitalist production and bourgeois social relations that ensures the victory of the proletarian revolution. However, the known uncertainty of this level 9 (which may vary within some limits depending on the totality of historical, political, geographical and other conditions of a given country and does not remain unchanged as society progresses) Nevertheless, it does not contradict the Marxist position that the transition from capitalism to socialism requires a certain minimum of economic conditions, without which the proletarian revolution would be impossible. It is not without reason that Lenin, in his comments on N. Bukharin's book "The Economy of the Transition Period," emphasized that "without a certain height of the cap [Itali]zma, nothing would have worked out for us." 10
Studying the complex structure of the pre-revolutionary Russian economy, Soviet researchers showed that Russia, which was one of the largest imperialist powers, was a middle-class country.
6 From the latest literature on this problem, see: A.V. Venediktov. Organization of state industry in the USSR. Vols. 1-2. L. 1957-1961; I. I. Mints. Istoriya Velikogo Oktyabrya [History of the Great October], Vol. 1, Moscow, 1967; A. L. Sidorov. The historical background of the great October socialist revolution. 1970 m.; it. Financial position of Russia during the First World War, Moscow, 1973; V. Ya. Laverychev. Objective prerequisites for the Great October Socialist Revolution. "History of the USSR", 1977, N 3; V. I. Bovykin. Socio-economic prerequisites of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Kommunist, 1977, No. 8, et al.
7 V. I. Lenin. PSS. vol. 34, p. 193; see also vol. 36, p. 531.
8 See V. I. Lenin's PSS. vol. 34, pp. 161-162, 307; G. 36, pp. 130-131; vol. 40, p. 14.
9 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 45, pp. 380-381.
10 "Lenin's collection" XI. sto. 397.
page 21
the level of development of capitalism. However, while remaining generally agrarian-industrial, it was not inferior to the advanced states of the West in terms of the degree of monopolization of the most important branches of industry. During the First World War, the number, size, and influence of monopolies increased dramatically. A distinctive feature of this period was the further concentration and multisectoral combination of production, the growth of the power of banks, the accelerated formation of higher forms of monopolistic associations on this basis, and the strengthening of state-capitalist and state - monopolistic regulation of the economy. Despite the incompleteness of these processes and the economic dependence on foreign capital, Russia did not differ in principle in the nature and level of socialization of large-scale industry from the more economically developed countries of the West, and its backwardness was the relative backwardness of a large imperialist country, which Lenin, along with France and Japan, classified as first-class, although not completely independent imperialist states 11 .
But the experience of history shows that the maturity of the material prerequisites of socialism does not automatically give rise to a proletarian revolution. This is particularly evident in the example of the capitalist countries of the West, which have long matured and "over-ripened" in economic terms, where the process of maturing the material conditions for the transition to socialism has not been adequately supported by the process of revolutionizing the working class and other strata of workers, which is no less important for the revolution. This discrepancy proves once again that the proletarian revolution does not arise directly from the contradictions generated by imperialism, but as a result of their indirect influence, through conflicts in the field of political, social and ideological relations. A revolution occurs wherever and whenever a favorable combination of socio-economic and political conditions, objective and subjective factors develops, the development of which leads to the maturation of a revolutionary situation, which then develops into a revolution .12
That is why, when talking about the prerequisites for October, we must keep in mind not only the socio-economic, but also the socio-political aspect of this large and complex problem. It has already received coverage in a number of works by Soviet historians .13 However, as a rule, only certain components of the social structure of pre-revolutionary Russia have been studied so far, and its few general characteristics have been limited mainly to stating the petty-bourgeois, agrarian-industrial nature of the country, as well as pointing out the incompleteness of the process of evolution of the peasantry and landlords into the classes of bourgeois society .14 Meanwhile, it is very important to consider all the most complex me-
11 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 28, p. 178.
12 For more information, see: Yu. A. Krasin. Lenin, revolution, modernity, Moscow, 1967, pp. 47-246; K. I. Zarodov. Three Revolutions in Russia and our Time, Moscow, 1975, pp. 69-105.
13 See: I. I. Mints, Edict. op.; "V. I. Lenin and the History of classes and political parties in Russia", Moscow, 1969; V. Ya.Laverychev. On the Other side of the Barricades, Moscow, 1967; L. S. Gaponenko. The Working Class of Russia in 1917, Moscow, 1970. The Decisive Power of the Great October, Moscow, 1977; T. V. Osipova. Class struggle in the countryside during the Preparation and Conduct of the October Revolution, Moscow, 1974; S. M. Dubrovsky. Agriculture and the peasantry of Russia in the period of imperialism, Moscow, 1975; G. A. Trukan. The Working Class in the Struggle for Victory and Consolidation of Soviet Power, Moscow, 1975; A. S. Smirnov. Bolsheviks and Peasants in the October Revolution, Moscow, 1976; P. N. Sobolev. Consolidation of the Union of Workers and Peasants in the first year of the Proletarian dictatorship, Moscow, 1977, et al.
14 See History of the USSR from Ancient Times to the Present Day, vol. VI, Moscow, 1968, pp. 317-318; V. I. Lenin on the Social Structure and Political system of Capitalist Russia, pp. 269-271.
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the mechanism of class relations in the country on the eve of October from the point of view of the correlation between the social maturity of the proletariat and its allies for the socialist revolution and the opposing ability of the ruling classes to defend their positions and put a barrier in the way of the revolutionary movement. Depending on the relationship between these two factors, and whether the revolutionary unity and organization of the proletariat as the hegemon of the liberation struggle prevails, or, conversely, the counter - revolutionary activity of the bourgeoisie and the landlords, the question is also decided whether the material and social prerequisites for the proletarian revolution mentioned above can be realized.
By the social maturity of a class, we mean its class cohesion, awareness of its interests and tasks, the presence of political and representative organizations, as well as the ability to extend its influence to other classes and social strata, involving them in the movement for the realization of their ideals. At the same time, it can be argued that it is the social maturity of a given class, which is closely related to its place in the system of social production and in the social structure of society, and not only its number (although the latter is of no small importance), that determines its role in the political life of society. We would like to address this question in more detail, considering from this angle the main classes and social strata of Russian society on the eve of October, taking into account the results of their socio-economic and political development during the period of imperialism.
The fact that Russian capitalism was entangled in a dense network of remnants of serfdom that permeated the entire economic and political system of the country also determined the specifics of the social structure of pre-revolutionary Russia. Suffice it to say that along with the classes of bourgeois society, there continued to exist classes-estates that emerged from the depths of feudalism, and class divisions that largely became at the beginning of the XX century. anachronism, however, they retained their legal force until 1917 and had a certain fertile ground in the system of landowning and communal land ownership. Insufficient development of capitalism "deep" led to the preservation of small-scale urban and rural industries, handicrafts and handicrafts (in 1914, there were more than 214 thousand small-scale handicraft and craft establishments in the country)15, and this determined the presence of a large stratum of small commodity producers, who, together with the small owners in the countryside, formed a mass of many millions of petty-bourgeois people, on whose behavior the course and results of the revolutionary movement in the country largely depended.
Our general understanding of the class structure of pre-revolutionary Russia is based on probable estimates derived by various calculations from the 1897 census, grouped by class as early as Lenin, and limited to 1913. According to these calculations, the dynamics of the social structure of Russia for 15 pre-war years is presented in the following form16 .
15 N. I. Vostrikov. Struggle for the Masses (urban middle strata on the eve of October), Moscow, 1970, p. 18.
16 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 3, p. 505; I. Yu. Pisarev. Population and labor in the USSR, Moscow, 1966, pp. 29-34. The absence of such social categories as "peasantry", "intelligentsia", and "employees" in this table is explained by the fact that in the book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" Lenin set out to show first of all the polarization of class forces in the new, bourgeois society established in post-reform Russia. According to Lenin, Russian society, as in any capitalist country, was divided into three main groups: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, and the proletariat (see V. I. Lenin's PSS. vol. 39, pp. 272, 453). In turn, all these groups are subdivided into a number of smaller ones and also pass into one another-
1897
1913
millions of people.
%
millions of people.
%
The big bourgeoisie, landlords, senior officials, and others
3,0
2,4
4,1
2,5
Well-to-do small owners
23,1
18,4
31 5
19,0
The poorest smallholders
35,8
28,5
42,0
25,3
Semi-proletarians
41,7
33,2
55,6
33,6
Proletarians
22,0
17,5
32,5
19,6
Total:
125,6
100
165,7
100
So, in general, class gradations, while retaining mostly their quantitative proportions, became clearer and more defined by the eve of the First World War. The polar social groupings grew at the expense of the middle petty-bourgeois stratum, both in absolute and percentage terms. Proletarians and semi-proletarians formed a solid majority of the country's population. At the same time, despite the decline in the share of the group of the poorest smallholders, their absolute number also increased. This testified to the vitality of small-scale production and the petty-bourgeois strata. However, as Lenin noted, "the simple majority of the petty-bourgeois masses has not yet decided and cannot decide anything, because the organization, political consciousness of the actions, their centralization (necessary for victory), all this can only give the dispersed millions of rural smallholders leadership either on the part of the bourgeoisie or on the part of the proletariat."17 The struggle for the masses was waged between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie throughout the entire period of imperialism and ended, as is well known, in the victory of the proletariat. The outcome of this struggle was determined by a number of factors, including the degree of maturity and political capacity of the main classes of Russian society.
By 1917, the ruling exploiting classes were a very complex and heterogeneous conglomerate, both in socio-economic and political terms. According to the data of the Ministry of Finance for 1909-1910, the total number of amateur individuals who had an annual income of more than 1 thousand rubles was 697.7 thousand, and the total amount of their income was 2644.7 million rubles .18 Data on capital and income are probably underestimated. Nevertheless, they give an idea of the size of the propertied classes, and most importantly, of the ratio of groups of owners by source of income. According to these data, in the first place in terms of income received were the owners of commercial and industrial enterprises, who received 32.4% of the total amount of income. On the second place-persons of highly paid "personal labor" (officials, employees, persons of "liberal professions" , etc.) - 28.7%, then landowners-15.6%, owners of money capital (rentiers, holders of securities, etc.) - 12.9% and owners of urban real estate (apartment buildings, retail premises warehouses, etc.)
I go through a lot of intermediate steps, which are not always taken into account by statistics. Based on these general propositions, the kulak upper class of the countryside, the small urban commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, as well as the middle strata of employees and intellectuals can be attributed to the group of well-to-do small owners; the middle peasants, artisans and small merchants, ordinary employees - to the poorest small owners, and the peasant poor and similar strata of the urban population - to semi-proletarians (see V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 3, pp. 503 - 506; I. Yu. Pisarev. Op. ed., p. 63).
17 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 34, p. 41.
18 See S. M. Dubrovsky. Op. ed., pp. 69-70.
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10,4%. Thus, the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia concentrated in their hands more than 61% of all income. In the following years, especially during the First World War, their positions were further strengthened. As Lenin pointed out in March 1917, the bourgeoisie had long ruled the country economically. Its power was based on wealth, organization, and knowledge .19
The Russian bourgeoisie was perhaps more diverse and heterogeneous in its composition than the bourgeoisie of the advanced capitalist countries. Its extreme strata were the large commercial and industrial bourgeoisie (this, in Lenin's words, is "a very narrow stratum of mature and overripe capitalists") and the petty bourgeoisie ("a very broad stratum of quite immature, but energetically striving to mature small and partly medium-sized owners, mainly peasants") .20 In addition, in the vast Russian Empire, there were also considerable differences between the bourgeoisie of the central regions and the periphery, and the peripheral bourgeoisie, especially the national one, was characterized by the preservation of early and even pre-capitalist forms of management, the inseparability of industrial and commercial capital (more often with the predominance of the latter), which led to the preservation by this layer of the bourgeoisie of many features of the old merchant class.
The entire economic power of the capitalist class was concentrated in the hands of the large, mostly monopolistic bourgeoisie, the financial oligarchy. "The number of the largest shareholders is negligible," Lenin wrote, " their role, as well as the total amount of wealth they have, is enormous. Without fear of making a mistake, we can say that if you make a list of five or even three thousand (and maybe even one thousand) of the richest people in Russia, or follow it... all the threads and connections of their financial capital, their banking connections, then the whole knot of capital's rule will be revealed, the whole main mass of wealth accumulated at the expense of other people's labor, all the really important roots of" control "over social production and distribution of products"21 . In turn, due to a number of socio - economic and political factors, big capital was divided into several competing groups that fought for orders, markets for raw materials and sales, influence on the government, and the right to represent the interests of the entire bourgeoisie as a class.
The most socially and economically mature was the Petrograd industrial and financial bourgeoisie. The economic basis of its power was a highly monopolized metalworking and machine-building industry, closely connected with large domestic and foreign banks. It was in these industries that the dominance of finance capital was first consolidated and the highest forms of monopolies began to take shape. The sphere of influence of this group was not limited to the Petrogradsky district proper, since the capital of the empire was the center of the formation of the entire Russian financial oligarchy, the headquarters of the largest monopolies that seized key positions in the country's heavy industry.
Similar in type to the Petrograd group was the large monopolistic bourgeoisie associated with the fuel and metallurgical industry of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog basin and the oil industry of Baku. In terms of the size of their functioning capital and their role as suppliers of raw materials for heavy industry, the monopolistic associations of this region were, at least until 1914, one of the most powerful groups of big capital. From Petrograd-
19 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 31, p. 18; vol. 34, p. 58.
20 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 21, p. 241.
21 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 32. pp. 109-110.
page 25
It was brought together by the general conditions of its emergence and formation - dependence on government orders, comprehensive support for the autocracy, and significant participation of foreign capital. The composition of the bourgeoisie of these groups was also close, among which the proportion of entrepreneurs from the nobility, the upper and middle bureaucracy, the technical intelligentsia, and foreigners was very high. A distinctive feature of these groups up to 1917 was conservatism and political passivity. They were quite satisfied with the existing socio-political conditions, since these latter provided them with high profits.
Even more conservative and reactionary were the Ural mining workers, among whom there were many old feudal families, and the monopolistic grouping of the south-western region, represented mainly by sugar landlords. These groups were characterized by a combination of semi-feudal forms of land ownership (noble-landed and possessional) and industrial-banking capital, the role of which is significantly enhanced during the war years.
The most active group of big capital, which actually held the political leadership in the entrepreneurial camp, was the Moscow one. It was the so-called national wing of monopoly capital. There was almost no direct influence of foreign capital, a wider sales market, and less dependence on the government. The economic base of this group was the highly concentrated textile industry of the Central Industrial Region, which before the war occupied the first place in terms of total industrial output and the number of workers, as well as a very profitable trade, mainly in manufactured goods, and trade turnover even exceeded that of industrial enterprises. A closer connection with the general consumer allowed the Moscow bourgeoisie to feel more acutely the inhibitory influence of semi-feudal remnants in the economic and political life of the country. This led to its greater activity and opposition to the autocratic regime in comparison with other bourgeois groups, its desire for certain bourgeois transformations, and greater flexibility in choosing the forms and methods of achieving its goals.
On the whole, the large Russian commercial and industrial bourgeoisie was a very impressive force. Differences in the degree of maturity of its individual strata, although they affected the development of a political platform, the choice of forms and methods of activity, were not an insurmountable obstacle to the socio-political consolidation of the bourgeoisie as a class. As you know, one of the features of the class struggle in the era of imperialism is that the workers are no longer opposed by isolated capitalists, but by powerful entrepreneurial unions and monopolistic associations that seek to rally entrepreneurs into a single anti-labor front. The rapid growth of business organizations in Russia, which marked the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century, was closely related to the increased process of monopolization of the country's economy. In most cases, monopolistic associations or large-scale capital groups were directly involved in their creation and operation. In turn, business unions not only helped strengthen the power of old monopolies and form new ones, but often directly performed their functions. As a tool of big capital, these unions were important channels of influence on the government, in particular on its economic policy. But still one of the first places in their activities was occupied by the sphere of relationships
page 26
protection of the interests of the bourgeoisie in the face of growing proletarian solidarity. It is no accident that Lenin pointed out in 1912 that all these bourgeois organizations were "the product mainly of the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary epoch." 22
By the beginning of 1917, the network of business organizations covered all the most important sectors of the economy and industrial areas of the country. The total number of them was at least 175,23 by this time . Among them were stock exchange committees and societies (more than 100), and All-Russian and regional branch congresses and their bodies-congress councils and advisory offices (more than 35), and district societies of breeders and manufacturers (6), headed, as a rule, by representatives of the largest monopolized enterprises. Most of them - at least 143-were created before the First World War. Associations specific to wartime were numerous military-industrial committees (283) headed by the Central Military-Industrial Committee and organizations of Zemstvo and City unions, in which broad business strata were involved under the pretext of working for defense. Formally, the all-Russian representation of the bourgeoisie on general economic issues was carried out by the Council of Congresses of Representatives of Industry and Trade, which, by the beginning of 1917, it united about 70 business organizations and, as Lenin noted, was run by "millionaire aces, the bigwigs of our large-scale industry." 24 Capital has penetrated all the pores of the state machinery. As a result, "the first blows to tsarism sufficed to make it collapse, clearing the place of the bourgeoisie."25
After the February Revolution, new business associations were added to the existing ones-branch and all-Russian unions of industrialists and chambers of commerce and industry, whose network increasingly covered the province. Exploiting the bourgeoisie's fear of the approaching socialist revolution, the leading circles of monopoly organizations sought to overcome the centrifugal tendencies in the entrepreneurial camp and rally it into a single counter-revolutionary front. However, as a result of competition within the largest bourgeoisie, a single coordinating center could not be created. Nevertheless, despite a certain disunity, big capital has taken over almost all the most important branches of public administration. A significant role in this was played by business unions, with the knowledge and consent of which the composition of the Provisional Government was formed. Representatives of only the central bourgeois organizations participated in 99 permanent and 104 temporary state and public bodies .26
At the same time, the political organization of the bourgeoisie grew. Until the February Revolution, big capital did not have its own All-Russian political party. After the overthrow of the autocracy, the big bourgeoisie relied on the Cadets, who even on the eve of the war and especially during the war years had begun to draw closer to the upper ranks of monopoly circles, primarily the Moscow group. After February 1917, in the course of consolidating all the counter-revolutionary forces, the transformation of the Narodnaya Svoboda Party into the main political party of the big bourgeoisie and its real leader was completed .27
22 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 21, p. 290.
23 R. S. Ganelin, L. E. Shepelev. Business organizations in Petrograd in 1917 On the history of the bourgeois counter-revolution. "The October Armed Uprising in Petrograd", Moscow-L. 1957, p. 261.
24 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 23, p. 91.
25 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 31, p. 18.
26 R. S. Havelin, L. E. Shepelev. Op. ed., p. 268.
27 For the counter-revolutionary activities of the Cadets in the period from February to October, see N. G. Dumova. From the history of the Cadet Party in 1917. "Historical Notes".
page 27
The growing class maturity of the Russian bourgeoisie is also evidenced by the fact that during this period it tried to adopt a number of techniques from the arsenal of the latest, typically bourgeois means of struggle to consolidate its rule. In the sphere of production, various piecework-based progressive wage systems, individual wage rates, and the use of the "working aristocracy" in order to fight proletarian solidarity have become widespread. In the socio-political sphere, entrepreneurs tried to "channel" the revolutionary liberation movement and direct it in an acceptable direction, hoping to use for this purpose working groups of military-industrial committees, labor exchanges ,trade unions, factory committees. 28 The victory of the February Revolution forced the Petrograd Society of Factory Owners to adopt the 8-hour working day, raise wages, and create conciliatory chambers and workers ' organizations. Under the conditions of dual power, the cooperation of the leading circles of big capital with the leaders of the petty-bourgeois parties, which actually surrendered power to the bourgeoisie and were part of the Provisional Government together with bourgeois leaders, became widespread.
And yet the Russian bourgeoisie has failed to consolidate its class rule, to lead the masses. This was due to a number of factors and, above all, to the very conditions of the formation of the Russian bourgeoisie. From the moment of its creation, it found itself in the closest dependence on the autocracy, which, through government orders, customs tariffs, subsidies, guarantees, etc., partially compensated it for the narrowness of the internal market and at the same time ensured the protection of high profits and predatory methods of exploiting labor with all the power of its state apparatus. This gave rise to the social "infantilism" of the bourgeoisie and delayed the process of its class consolidation. Representatives of the commercial and industrial world were mostly content to be engaged by tsarist bureaucrats in "consultations" on economic policy issues, the determination of the main directions of which still remained in the hands of the government. The bourgeoisie, as an independently organized force, entered the arena of political struggle rather late - only during the revolution of 1905-1907. Thus, its political consolidation was actually a reaction to the growing revolutionary liberation movement in the country, in which the leading role belonged to the working class. The fear of revolution proved to be stronger among the entrepreneurs than the opposition to the autocracy, although its inhibitory role in the development of the productive forces became more and more obvious even to bourgeois circles. These circumstances led to the counterrevolution of the bourgeoisie and its political impotence. These features, as Lenin noted, were characteristic not only of the Russian bourgeoisie, but also of the bourgeoisie in general in the countries of "late capitalism" with incomplete bourgeois-democratic revolutions. "Here,"he wrote," its astonishing, monstrous, almost unbelievable political impotence is fully explained by the fact that this bourgeoisie is much more afraid of revolution than of reaction. " 29
1972, vol. 90; Kh. M. Astrakhan. The Bolsheviks and their political opponents in 1917. L. 1973.
28 See: A. P. Korelin. The policy of big capital in the field of factory legislation in Russia during the First World War. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, 1964, series istoriya, No. 6; izd. Forms and methods of the struggle of big capital against the working-class movement in Russia during the First World War. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, 1965, istoriya series, No. 6; V. Ya. Laverychev. On the other side of the barricades, etc.
29 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 21, pp. 371-372.
page 28
It is very characteristic that the Russian commercial and industrial bourgeoisie was clearly in no hurry to stand alone with the revolutionary people and take full state power into its own hands. A monarchy limited by at least some semblance of a constitution suited it much better than a republic, because the monarchical system allowed the bourgeoisie to shift all responsibility for the "imperfection" of the existing order to the tsarist government and at the same time use its military-police apparatus, which had been developing for centuries, to suppress the actions of the working people. It is no accident that the bourgeoisie clung to the idea of the monarchy as the most "familiar" symbol of power in the eyes of the people until the very last moment in 1917, without which, in its opinion, civil war and anarchy would inevitably begin in the country .30 The cadets ' transition to republican positions after February 1917 was forced and opportunistic, and after October they again started talking about restoring the monarchy as the only means of "saving" Russia. As for the economic sphere, the Russian bourgeoisie also tended more towards the crude, predatory forms of exploitation of wage labor that were characteristic of the early stages of capitalist development in the West and were then widely used in colonial and dependent countries. The huge hidden agrarian overpopulation that existed in Russia caused a special cheapness of labor and allowed the bourgeoisie to use extensive methods of exploitation for a long time, which did not require significant permanent capital.
After the February Revolution, entrepreneurs, frightened by the proletarian movement and deprived of the protection of the autocracy overthrown by the people, were forced to switch to tactics of maneuvering and concessions, hoping thus to stop the further development of the revolution in the country. However, the leaders of the bourgeoisie did not have any well-thought-out and consistent program on the workers ' question. All the concessions were half-measures dictated by the circumstances of the moment and only sanctioned retroactively those gains of the working class that had already been made in secret. At the same time, the bourgeoisie took advantage of every opportunity to withdraw its concessions and return to the previous state of affairs. As early as May 1917. it is once again taking a frank course towards applying the usual violent methods of combating the working-class movement. The establishment of workers ' control over production caused a particular frenzy among entrepreneurs, and they resorted to disguised sabotage to combat it .31 Finally, since the middle of 1917, large-scale capital has been betting on a military plot against the revolution, pinning, in particular, high hopes on the Kornilov coup.
It can be argued with good reason that the Russian bourgeoisie was able to establish only a remote semblance of the mechanism of bribery and division of the working class, which was perfectly worked out in the West, and which helped the bourgeoisie there to prevent or suppress the proletarian revolution. The Russian bourgeoisie clearly lacked a sober understanding of the need to abandon in time the usual "military-feudal" methods of fighting the working-class movement, cultivated by the autocracy, and move to new, more flexible and refined forms of class rule.
The class-political organization of the Russian bourgeoisie was also insufficient, although in this area its lag behind its Western class counterparts was not so great. All that,
30 Sch. N. G. Dumova. Op. ed., pp. 116-123.
31 See V. Ya. Laverychev. On the other side of the barricades, pp. 236-237.
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taken together, it ultimately determined the historical incapacity of the bourgeoisie in Russia, a clear manifestation of which was its powerlessness to prevent the growing devastation and food crisis in the country, not to mention the solution of agrarian and national issues and the consistent democratization of the country.
Thus, the research of Soviet historians has shown that it would be wrong to unilaterally portray the main political opponent of the proletariat - the Russian bourgeoisie-as an economically weak, completely disorganized and politically powerless class, which was not worth any effort to overthrow. However, in comparison with the bourgeoisie of the West, it was indeed weaker and politically short-sighted, and this greatly facilitated the implementation of the socialist revolution by the Russian proletariat.
The second ruling class, the local nobility, retained full power in the country until February 1917 and represented an impressive economic force. By 1905, despite the" impoverishment " of noble estates, which ideologists of the landowner class bitterly complained about, in 50 provinces of European Russia there were about 107 thousand noble estates with a total area of 53.2 million dessiatines, which accounted for 62% of all private personal land ownership .32 At the same time, the largest and largest latifundists-owners of estates over 500 dessiatines (16% of all landlords) - had 80% of the noble land fund.
In the course of its socio-economic evolution, the post-reform nobility gradually disintegrated, drawing closer to the classes and strata of the new, bourgeois society. Despite all the help and support provided by the tsarist government, the landlords lost more than 40% of their land stock during the 40 post-reform years .33 Faced with the need to somehow adapt to the new conditions, the former feudal lords-serfs were forced to rebuild the economy on a capitalist basis. This process, which was a variant of the "Prussian" path of development of agrarian capitalism, took place, however, extremely slowly and by 1917 was not actually completed in this way. Some of the landlords, who used capitalist forms of exploitation of the peasants more successfully than others, became economically close to the bourgeoisie. The landlords, who built their economy on a labor-based system, lagged significantly behind in their social evolution. And if the former were more inclined to bourgeois liberalism, the latter were the true support of the autocracy. On the whole, landlords ' land ownership condemned "the overwhelming mass of the Russian population, the peasantry, to poverty, servitude, and downtroddenness, and the whole country to backwardness in all spheres of life."34
The first Russian Revolution, as is well known, failed to resolve the agrarian question. And although in the ten post-revolutionary years the nobility lost another 10.8 million dessiatines. The landlords 'economic position was still quite strong: they had approximately 40% of the total private land fund. The latifundial nature of private land ownership was also preserved: 23.2 thousand latifundists (nobles and representatives of other estates) accounted for 51.7 million dessiatines, that is, about 70% of the total private land ownership. 35 Don't forget
32 See " Land Ownership statistics. 1905. Set of data on 50 provinces of European Russia", St. Petersburg, 1907, pp. 78, 79, 143.
33 See A. P. Korelin. The nobility in post-reform Russia. "Historical Notes", 1971, vol. 87, p. 142.
34 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 31, p. 425.
35 See A.M. Anfimov and I. F. Makarov. New data on land ownership in European Russia. "History of the USSR", 1974, N 1, p. 85.
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and that the landlords received huge amounts of money in the form of repurchase payments, income from the sale and lease of land, mortgage loans (by 1916, only land banks issued 32.3 billion rubles as collateral for the estate, and by the beginning of 1917, debts in the amount of 1.2 billion rubles remained outstanding) .36 In total, by 1917, in 27 provinces of European Russia, more than 31.6 million dessiatines were pledged, of which 82% belonged to the nobles .37 The economic power of landowners increased the income from entrepreneurship. All this testified to the close intertwining of the interests of the landlords and the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, and to the penetration of finance capital into the sphere of agriculture.
In the conditions of the peasants ' struggle for land, which became more acute every year, landlords repeatedly tried to create an All-Russian organization of landowners with the participation of peasants who owned land on property rights. Such an organization - the All-Russian Union of Land Owners-was formed in 1905, but, having existed for five years, it never went beyond a small landowner association. The landlords returned to this idea again in 1916, and in May 1917 the All-Russian Union of Landowners and Rural Owners was formed, where landowners, landowners, tenants and other categories of landowners and rural owners were represented, united by the desire to protect private land ownership in the face of the growing peasant movement in the country .38 But the landlords did not manage to create a mass support among the peasants. Along with the second social war, which flared up every month, that is, the struggle of the rural poor against the kulaks, the first, anti-meshchichy social war continued in the countryside, the fuel for which was provided by the obsolete "latifundia - allotment" system preserved by the autocracy and preserved by the Provisional Government. Forced to defend themselves against the growing socialist revolution, the landlords tried to unite with big capital. In the spring of 1917, the Council of the All-Russian Union of Land Owners moved closer to the council of the All-Russian Union of Trade and Industry .39 But this alliance did not add strength to any of the organizations.
Thus, both the Russian bourgeoisie and the landlords were politically, socially, economically, and psychologically incapable of solving the problems facing Russia constructively. Moreover, their counter-revolutionary policies only served to exacerbate the economic and political crisis in which the vast war-torn country was struggling. In turn, this crisis significantly weakened the economic positions of the ruling classes (depletion of productive forces, disruption of established economic ties, etc.), making it even more difficult for them to maneuver socially. As a result, by the autumn of 1917, Russia was faced with a dilemma: either profound social transformations designed to give the people peace, bread, and land, and possible only on the way to the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one, or a national catastrophe.
A real political force capable of resisting the bourgeoisie and landlords who have ingloriously disappeared from the historical scene, and of leading the masses of Russia out of the impasse into which their former enemies have led them.
36 "Statistics of long-term credit in Russia". Issue 1. Ptgr. 1917, pp. 12-14.
37 D. I. Richter. State land banks in Russia and their further fate. Ptgr. 1917, p. 13.
38 See T. V. Osipova. All-Russian Union of Land Owners (1917)." History of the USSR", 1976, N 3, p. 117.
39 See V. Ya. Laverychev. On the other side of the barricades, p. 194.
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masters of the empire, there was only one class - the proletariat. A class associated with the most advanced forms of large-scale machine production, which greatly surpassed all other social strata in its cohesion and put forward in the person of the Bolshevik Party a political vanguard that has never been equaled in the history of the world; a class that rapidly rose to the role of leader of the people, hegemon of the revolutionary liberation movement of all working and world progress. As Lenin pointed out, "if the masses of the working people, dispersed and crushed by the capitalists, did not form a class that learns to organize, builds large-scale industry, urban life, and the entire socialist culture and civilization, then the advanced detachments of the working people would not be able to do so.".. the destruction of capitalism " 40 .
The total number of wage earners in Russia on the eve of World War II varies, according to various estimates, from 17.8 to 22.7 million people, 41 which accounted for about 40% of direct producers of material valuables .42 These calculations are generally consistent with the opinion of Lenin, who wrote in September 1913 that there are probably about 20 million proletarians in Russia .43 At the same time, the number of factory and transport workers (without employees) is determined by almost all researchers approximately equally-in 4.3 - 4.5 million people, including about 2.5 million in the manufacturing industry, 1.4 million in transport and communications, and more than 0.6 million in the mining and mining industry .44
During the war years, as a result of the mobilization, evacuation of a number of industrial areas occupied by German troops, as well as the crisis phenomena in the economy, the size and composition of the wage labor army underwent quite significant changes. It is suggested that only 15 to 19% of industrial workers were conscripted into the army45 . As a result, the total number of employees on the eve of October ranged from 15 to 18.5 million people .46 At the same time, the size of the industrial proletariat remained at the same level
40 V. I. Lenin's speech dedicated to the memory of Y. M. Sverdlov. Kommunist, 1977, No. 6, p. 4.
41 See A. G. Rashin. Formation of the working class of Russia, Moscow, 1958, p. 171; E. E. Kruse. The situation of the working class of Russia in 1900-1914, L. 1976, p. 72. The discrepancy in the final data is mainly due to two reasons: first, the authors ' involvement of various additional material that was not taken into account by official statistics, and, secondly, differences in the calculation methodology and methods of social grouping. Much depends, in particular, on whether various categories of employees are included in the proletariat, which in 1913, according to A. G. Rashin's calculations, was no less than 2 million people. A significant part of them, both in terms of their financial situation and especially in terms of their social psychology, belonged to the beginning of the XX century. still, to the petty-bourgeois strata. The process of bringing employees closer to the proletarian strata, which is particularly intense in capitalist countries in our time (see, for example, I. Schleifstein. On the development of the class structure of bourgeois society. Kommunist, 1977, No. 5, p. 98), was then only at the initial stage. At that time, the majority of low-level commercial employees, railway and water transport service personnel, and communications workers were close to the proletariat. Obviously, the time has come to agree on a unified methodology for calculating different categories of wage earners and, most importantly, to precisely define the boundaries of the concept of "industrial worker".
42 We have calculated 17.8 million proletarians and 44.9 million people who produce material values (see Yu. I. Pisarev. Op. ed., p. 37).
43 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 24, p. 34.
44 See E. E. Kruse. Op. ed., p. 42.
45 See P. V. Volobuev. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie in Russia in 1917, Moscow, 1964, p. 20. Recently, the opinion has been expressed that the percentage of mobilized workers was somewhat higher (L. G. Protasov. Class composition of soldiers of the Russian army. "History of the USSR", 1977, N 1, p. 47).
46 See P. V. Volobuev. Edict op., p. 16; L. S. Gaponenko. The Working Class of Russia in 1917, p. 72.
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4.6-4.8 million people. The group of workers employed in defense enterprises, mainly in heavy industry, has significantly increased (in metalworking-by 66.5%, in mining and mining-by 55%, etc.); the number of weavers, woodworkers, printers, builders, agricultural workers, on the contrary, has decreased. During the three years of the war, the number of male workers decreased by 12.6%, the proportion of female workers, on the contrary, increased by 38.3%, and adolescents and minors-by 41.4%. By the beginning of 1917, women, teenagers, and children accounted for almost half of the total industrial labor force .47 During these years, the number of workers who came from the semi-proletarian strata of the city and countryside, as well as from certain groups of the petty bourgeoisie, who evaded conscription, increased significantly. However, all these processes also had a certain positive significance, ensuring the connection of the proletariat with the broad masses of the people and winning them over to the side of the revolution. In addition, the mobilization of workers into the army increased the share and influence of proletarian elements in the armed forces, which also contributed to the growth of the revolutionary movement in Russia48 .
As Lenin noted, "the strength of the proletariat in any capitalist country is incomparably greater than the proletariat's share in the total population."49 The basis of this power is that the working class "economically dominates the center and nerve of the entire economic system of capitalism." 50 This was especially evident during major strikes, when factories and factories were shut down, railway traffic was stopped, large cities were plunged into darkness, in short, the entire complex mechanism of capitalist economy was put out of order, in which every hour of downtime meant a loss of profit for entrepreneurs - this is the main incentive for the functioning of capitalist production.
An important source of proletarian cohesion and organization, which were of great importance for the development of the revolutionary movement in the country, was the high concentration of workers, which contrasted sharply with the dispersion of small producers in the city and countryside. The bulk of Russia's large-scale industry was located in relatively few areas of the country, mainly in the European part. The vast majority of industrial workers were also concentrated here. Suffice it to say that in Petrograd, Moscow, and the Central Industrial District there were about 3/4 of all the workers in the 35 provinces of European Russia51 . The role of the proletariat was also great on the railways , the vital arteries of the country. As a result, at the right moment, the forces of the working class were concentrated in the most important points, primarily in Petrograd and Moscow, which, according to Lenin, largely decided the political fate of the people .52 At the same time, large contingents of workers were concentrated in national regions: in Transcaucasia, primarily in the oil fields of Baku, in the cities of the Baltic States, in the cotton gins of the Turkestan region, which later played a major role in the triumphal march of Soviet power throughout the country in late 1917 - early 1918.
The high degree of labor concentration in large enterprises, which was often the result of low organic production in Russia.
47 See A. G. Rashin. Op. ed., p. 232.
48 During the war, among the 15 million conscripted workers, there were approximately 700-800 thousand factory workers (see L. G. Protasov. Op. ed., p. 47).
49 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 40, p. 23.
50 Ibid.
51 "Materials on labor statistics of the Northern region". Issue 1. Ptgr. 1918, p. 10.
52 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 40, pp. 6-7.
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the structure of capital and the predominance of extensive forms of exploitation of wage labor, became an important factor that facilitated the rallying of workers in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. At the same time, the presence of large enterprises and large industrial centers, which attracted tens and hundreds of thousands of workers, helped to strengthen the international solidarity of various national detachments of the Russian proletariat, which was of no small importance for the victory of the proletarian revolution in such a huge multinational country as Russia. The leading role in this international proletarian family rightfully belonged to the Russian workers, who have always been at the forefront of the struggle against tsarism and capitalism.
During the First World War, the level of labor concentration in Russia became even higher. According to some estimates, by the beginning of 1917, about 72% of all workers in 31 provinces of European Russia were employed in large and large enterprises, 53 and the highest concentration of the proletariat was distinguished by enterprises that were part of monopolistic associations. Thus, over 52 thousand people were employed at the plants of the Kolomna - Sormovo concern, 21.4 thousand at the enterprises of the Russian-Asian Bank military - Industrial Group (excluding the sequestered Putilovsky and Nevsky plants), 17.6 thousand at the factories of the Naval - Russud Shipbuilding Trust, and 13.2 thousand at the Lessner - Noblessner association. The total number of workers in metalworking plants belonging to certain monopolistic associations increased 1.5-2 times during the war years and amounted to more than 250 thousand people by 1917, that is, more than 46% of all workers in private enterprises of this branch 54 .
It is important that the largest enterprises, especially those that were part of monopolistic associations, managed to retain the main core of their qualified personnel during the war years. If by the end of 1916 the conscripted workers who received a deferral from conscription accounted for an average of 27% of the total number of workers of military age, then at defense enterprises they were about 50%.55 Thus, while striving to militarize labor and making it more difficult for workers to move from one enterprise to another, entrepreneurs at the same time unwittingly helped to unite the proletariat and strengthen the influence of its skilled and politically mature core on the loose mass of new workers who had just entered the factories. And the fact that in the most difficult conditions of the war this stratum of hereditary proletarians, who had always been the main pillar of the Bolshevik Party, not only survived, but also fully preserved its high revolutionary potential, was of great importance for the fate of the Russian revolution.
Let us note in this connection that social dialectics also forced to" work " for the revolution factors that at first glance did not indicate the strength, but rather the weakness of the Russian workers - their connection with the countryside, the concentration of a significant number of industrial enterprises in rural areas, and so on, for all this made it easier for the proletariat to gain and consolidate its position in the hegemony in the liberation movement, expanded its influence on the peasant masses.
The Russian proletariat was not only the only fully revolutionary class in Russian society, but also the most advanced detachment of the international proletariat. By its political maturity-
53 See B. M. Freidlin. Essays on the History of the Working-class movement in Russia in 1917, Moscow, 1967, p. 25.
54 Calculated on the basis of data from the Special Conference on Defense (TSGIA, f. 369, op. 21, d. 249, ll. 3-31), the Petrograd Society of Breeders and Manufacturers (TSGIA of the USSR, f. 150, op. 2, d. 49, ll. 127-187), the Ministry of Trade and Industry (ibid., f. 23, op. 16, d. 318, ll. 74-75) and materials of a number of plant departments.
55 " Russia in the World War of 1914-1918. (in figures)". Moscow, 1925, pp. 76-77, 101.
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It surpassed the working class of any other capitalist country in its strength, experience in revolutionary battles, and internationalism. In the pre-revolutionary period, the proletariat of Russia showed unprecedented activity in the strike struggle: thus, in 1905-1907, according to the far from complete data of the factory inspection, the number of strikers amounted to more than 4.7 million people, in 1912-1914-about 3 million (according to more complete estimates-about 5 million), in 1916 G.-about 1.2 million, in January - February 1917 - almost 700 thousand, and in September - October, on the eve of October - 2.3 million people 56 . At the same time, the level of political activity of the strikers was extremely high. In 1905, almost 50% went on strike for political reasons, in 1907 - 73%, and in 1912 - 80% of all participants in the strike movement .57
No other national detachment of the world army of labor was able to use so many different methods of struggle and forms of organization in such a short period of time (1905 - 1917) as the working class of Russia. Among them were a mass revolutionary strike, an armed uprising, Soviets, factory committees, not to mention a fundamentally new approach of the Russian proletariat to the traditional forms of trade union movement and parliamentarism for the West. Undoubtedly, the Western European proletariat accumulated considerable experience in the struggle against capital in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In terms of the number of socialist parties and trade union organizations, the circulation of workers ' newspapers, and some other purely quantitative indicators, it even surpassed the working class of Russia. However, the objective and subjective conditions in which the working-class movement developed in the West (the presence of a broad stratum of the "working-class aristocracy", the atmosphere of legality, the fascination with the economic goals of the movement to the detriment of its political tasks, the fetishization of parliamentary forms of struggle, etc.) led to the "depoliticization" and accommodation of significant sections of the proletariat. The organizational weakness of the Western European socialist parties and the predominance of revisionist and centrist elements in their leadership, which had forgotten the basic principles of revolutionary Marxism, were particularly pronounced during the First World War, when the Second International suffered a shameful collapse.
The situation in Russia was different. Of the two objectively possible tendencies in the development of the working - class movement under capitalism - the desire to improve the position of the proletariat within the existing system, or to join the struggle at the head of all the working people for the overthrow of the rule of capital-the second, revolutionary tendency prevailed decisively and irrevocably in Russia at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the eve of the war, 4/5 of the country's class-conscious workers followed the Bolshevik party. The layer of the "working aristocracy"was also extremely insignificant here. According to the most approximate and apparently overestimated calculations, it was about 4% in Russia, whereas in Germany, on the eve of the First World War, the privileged strata of the workers accounted for 9%, and in England - even 15% of the total proletariat .58 The general revolutionary atmosphere that prevailed in Russia, the difficult economic and political situation of the proletariat, and finally a great influence on the working class.-
56 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. vol. 19, p. 397; "History of the USSR from ancient Times to the present day", Vol. VI, pp. 426, 438-465; L. S. Gaponenko. The Working Class of Russia in 1917, p. 436; "Problems of the hegemony of the proletariat in the Democratic Revolution (1905-February 1917)", Moscow, 1975, p. 112; N. A. Ivanova; V. I. Lenin on the revolutionary mass strike in Russia, Moscow, 1975, p. 175.
57 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 19, p. 397; N. A. Ivanova. Op. ed., p. 181.
58 See B. N. Mikhalevsky. On the working aristocracy in Germany on the eve of the First World War. Voprosy istorii, 1955, No. 1, p. 103; Yu. Netesin. On the universal law of capitalist accumulation in imperialist Russia. Izvestia of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR, 1962, No. 10, p. 29.
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All this has led to the fact that the working class of our country as a whole has been immunized against opportunism and nationalism and has firmly taken a vanguard position in the international working-class movement.
The steadily growing influence of the Bolsheviks on the working class was a factor that played a decisive role in the maturing of the political prerequisites for the October Revolution. If the workers ' parties of other countries, in the figurative phrase of V. V. Vorovsky, had to forge the class consciousness of the proletariat by long, persistent and often unsuccessful blows on cold metal, then the Bolsheviks worked "on red-hot iron, easily taking the desired form"59 . And this comparison of the working masses of Russia with a red-hot iron perfectly conveys the atmosphere of high class consciousness, revolutionary optimism and ideological conviction that has always been characteristic of the proletarian vanguard of our country.
During the First World War, the proletariat of Russia managed to preserve its main revolutionary core and, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, in February 1917, carried out a victorious democratic revolution that ended the three-hundred-year-old Romanov monarchy. At the new stage of the revolution, the working class retained the role of the hegemon class, strengthened its ties with the masses, and in alliance with the poorest peasantry launched preparations for the socialist revolution. In the short time after February, he not only restored the party and trade union organizations weakened during the war as a result of the repressions of the tsarist authorities, but also created a wide network of Soviets, factory committees, and Red Guard detachments that played an important role in the victory of the October Revolution. By October 1917, the Bolshevik Party had about 350,000 members, including about 60% of the workers, 60 the Red Guard had almost 200,000 workers, and the trade unions had more than 2.6 million members by the end of 1917 .61 Thus, on the eve of October, the Russian proletariat represented a huge socio-political force that decisively took into its own hands the historical destinies of a huge multinational country.
However, even this powerful vanguard of the working population of Russia could not have broken the resistance of the exploiting classes without the support of the broadest non-proletarian masses. In a petty-bourgeois country like Russia, the question of the proletariat's allies in the struggle for democracy and socialism was particularly acute. As is well known, the leaders of the Second International, including Kautsky and Plekhanov, held the view that the proletariat would be able to win political power only if it became the majority of the country's population, since during the socialist revolution it would have to overcome the resistance of not only the bourgeoisie, but also of all the petty-bourgeois strata, primarily the peasantry. Lenin resolutely rebelled against these opportunist views. He scientifically proved the objective possibility and necessity of an alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry, of all democratic strata of society in the struggle against the autocracy, and then of an alliance of the proletariat and the semi-proletarian strata of the city and countryside, first of all of the poorest peasantry, in the struggle for socialism. He showed that the development of capitalism creates that kinship, closeness, and connection between the position of the proletariat and the non-proletarian working masses, which is necessary for the successful influence of the proletariat on these masses .62 At the same time, if in the early stages of the development of capitalism, the social proximity of the proletariat and the petty-bourgeois strata of labor-
59 Vestnik Zhizni, 1907, No. 4, p. 101.
60 See History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, vol. 3, book 1, Moscow, 1967, p. 243.
61 See "From the History of Three Russian Revolutions", L. 1976, p. 6.
62 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 40, pp. 14-15.
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If the struggle of the working population could not yet lead to their conscious class union and active joint actions against the exploiters, then mature capitalism created the conditions for the proletariat to win the role of hegemon of the liberation movement, leader and representative of the interests of all working people.
A special place among the petty-bourgeois strata of the Russian population, both in their numbers and in their place in the revolutionary movement, was occupied by the working peasantry, whose position was particularly important also because the army and navy, without which the proletariat could not even think of winning victory over the bourgeoisie on the side of the revolution, for the most part consisted of immigrants from villages 63 . In terms of their material and political situation, the workers and the bulk of the peasants were the closest to each other among all the other social strata that made up Russian society. At the same time, the peasants were also driven to ally with the proletariat by the fact that during the period of imperialism the bourgeoisie had become a reactionary force, unable to support the peasants in the struggle for land and acting in concert with its main class enemy, the landlords. The unresolved agrarian question in Russia made the peasant a spontaneous potential ally of the working class in the struggle against the remnants of feudalism and the oppression of capital. Explaining the phenomenon of the special revolutionary character of the Russian peasantry, Lenin emphasized that in Russia "the peasantry is particularly ruined, incredibly impoverished, and has absolutely nothing to lose." 64
Since the end of the XIX century. The social heterogeneity of the peasantry was becoming more pronounced. The rural bourgeoisie was gaining more and more economic power, and at the turn of the two centuries it concentrated in its hands almost half of allotment land, 60-70% of peasant bills of sale, and 50-60% of peasant leased land, as well as more than 50% of horse stock .65 It was opposed by about 4.5 million "pure" rural proletarians66 and tens of millions of rural semi-proletarians-wage workers with allotments who could no longer exist without selling their labor power. The intermediate link in the countryside was represented by the middle peasantry. Not only was it able to support itself with the income from its plot of land, but it also received certain surpluses of production, which in the best years could be converted into money capital when sold. On the whole, the position of the middle peasant was extremely unstable, and its disintegration served as the main source of replenishment in the countryside of extreme social groups - the kulaks and the poor.
On the eve of October, approximately 15% of the well-to-do peasants and kulaks, 20% of the middle peasants, and 65% of the poor were in the Russian countryside .67 Thus, the rural strata, which were close in position to the working class, formed a clear majority in Russia. However, their defection to the proletariat could not be an automatic process. The duality of the social nature of the laboring peasantry as worker and proprietor manifested itself in its constant vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The peasantry needed its own experience, which would allow it to make a choice in favor of the only real ally and leader of the peasant movement for land and freedom - the proletariat.
Of great importance in this regard were the first Russian revolution and the Stolypin agrarian reform, which showed all the groundlessness of the political process.-
63 See " Russia in the World War of 1914-1918. (in figures)", p. 8 49.
64 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 9, p. 381.
65 See S. P. Trapeznikov. Leninism and the Agrarian-Peasant Question, vol. 1, Moscow, 1974, pp. 39-41.
66 See A. G. Rashin. Op. ed., p. 167.
67 Cm. "The Soviet Peasantry". Brief Historical Essay, Moscow, 1973, p. 12.
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dezhd on the solution of the agricultural issue in Russia "from above". The peasants quickly became disillusioned with the policy of the Provisional Government, which resolutely sided with the landlords. As a result, the union of the proletariat and the peasantry became more and more real and diverse every year.
The period of imperialism in Russia was marked by the struggle for the peasant masses between the proletariat and the liberal bourgeoisie, between the Bolsheviks, the Cadets, and the petty-bourgeois parties of the narodnik persuasion. Despite a number of attempts by the peasants to create the germ of their own political party (the All-Russian Peasant Union and the Trudovaya Gruppa), 68 the Trudovoe peasantry proved incapable of forming an independent organization and went partly after the Bolsheviks, partly after the Social Revolutionaries and other narodnik trends. The latter circumstance predetermined the political agreement between the Bolsheviks and the left SRS, who expressed the interests of the middle peasants and partly the rural poor, which existed in the days of October and in the first months of Soviet power .69 This agreement undoubtedly contributed to the rapid establishment of Soviet power in the countryside and the implementation of radical agrarian reforms there, as a result of which the peasants received the former landlords ' lands. Later, with the transition of the left SRS to anti-Soviet positions, they lost their influence on the peasant masses, who supported the policy of the Bolshevik party .70
In the course of preparing for the socialist revolution, the Bolsheviks set a course for an alliance with the rural poor, the only stratum of the peasantry that was capable of unconditionally supporting not only the general democratic, but also the socialist transformations that were part of the Bolshevik party's program. However, as a result of the Provisional Government's failure to resolve the land question, the October Revolution, which was carried out by the proletariat in alliance with the poorest peasantry, received the support of the entire working peasantry insofar as it completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the field of agrarian and general democratic transformations, eliminated the landlords ' land ownership, which was hated by the peasantry, and ensured the country's exit from the imperialist war. In this connection, Lenin wrote:: "In October 1917, we marched with the peasantry, with the entire peasantry." 71
Thus, in addition to the alliance of the working class and the poorest peasantry on the socialist platform, during the October period there were also joint actions of the working class and the entire working peasantry on the platform of solving general democratic tasks .72 However, even at that time there were quite clear differences in the positions of the various social strata of the rural population of Russia: only the poorest peasantry consistently fought for socialist transformation together with the proletariat, the middle peasants hesitated, and the kulaks, especially in the conditions of the acute class struggle that unfolded in the countryside in the summer of 1918, opposed the Soviet government.
Another large intermediate group of the Russian population consisted of the so - called middle urban strata-artisans-
68 For more information about these organizations, see: E. I. Kiryukhina. All-Russian Peasant Union in 1905 "Historical Notes", 1955, vol. 50; D. A. Kolesnichenko. Formation and activity of a Labor group. "History of the USSR", 1967, N 4.
69 See P. A. Golub. On the Bolshevik bloc with the left SRS. Voprosy istorii CPSU, 1971, No. 9.
70 See K. V. Gusev. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party: from Petty-bourgeois Revolutionism to Counter-Revolution, Moscow, 1975.
71 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 508.
72 Yu. A. Krasin. The problem of the majority is the socialist revolution. Kommunist, 1977, No. 10, p. 38.
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small merchants, employees of state and private institutions, and the working intelligentsia (on the eve of the World War, there were about 14 million of them)73 . As for artisans and small traders, they were close to the middle peasantry in their social nature: out of 214 thousand craft establishments, more than half worked without hired labor at all or with one worker; 86.3 thousand employed from 2 to 4 workers, and only 2.2 thousand owners (1.04%) employed more than 15 workers, made their way into the ranks of the middle bourgeoisie 74 . The vast majority of artisans barely made ends meet, and their earnings were usually even lower than those of industrial workers. Most of the smaller merchants were in the same situation.
Employees and intellectuals, with the exception of their bourgeois upper classes, also belonged to the middle strata, but they occupied a special place among them. Their economic situation clearly brought them closer to wage laborers, but their background, connections, lifestyle, and psychology attracted them to the bourgeoisie, which, in turn, tried in every possible way to attract them to its side. The dual social nature also gave rise to extreme inconsistency and inconsistency in the political positions of this part of the population. Having supported the proletariat in the February Revolution, these strata then considered the revolutionary process complete and placed their full confidence in the Provisional Government and the compromise parties. Gradually, however, these strata began to develop the conviction that the bourgeoisie was not in a position to lead the country out of a state of crisis. As a result, in the autumn of 1917, a significant part of the middle strata switched to supporting the proletariat, the Bolsheviks. Only the upper and middle groups of employees and intellectuals, well-to-do merchants and artisans openly gravitated to the Provisional Government. The Bolshevik Party sought to lead the least well-off and privileged groups of the urban petty bourgeoisie, while at the same time pursuing a policy of neutralizing the bulk of the urban petty bourgeoisie, and this neutralization was seen in the long run as a means of turning these strata into allies of the proletariat.
Thus, being a minority of the country's population, the proletariat became by October 1917 the political force that was able to win over the majority of the people, which predetermined the victory of the proletarian revolution in Russia. This victory would not have been possible without the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, created and nurtured by Lenin. Marxism-Leninism teaches that no class in history has achieved domination unless it has put forward its own political leaders capable of directing the movement of this class and the masses following it. The Russian proletariat found in Lenin a new type of leader , a titan of revolutionary thought and action, who organically combined the traits of a scientist, a politician, and a people's tribune. Lenin's strength lay in the fact that he was inseparable from the Bolshevik Party, from the working class. By combining the spontaneous movement of the proletarian masses with the ideas of scientific socialism, the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin created a powerful revolutionary force that proved capable not only of completely destroying the old bourgeois society, but also of building socialism in our country.
Already in the first Program of the party, adopted at its Second Congress in 1903, the task of preparing a socialist revolution and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat was set. And although at that time the Bolsheviks put in the foreground the task of purging the country of all remnants of serfdom, they never lost sight of the socialist perspective of the Soviet Union.-
73 See N. I. Vostrikov. Op. ed., p. 15.
74 See ibid., p. 14.
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its ultimate goal - the struggle for communist ideals. It is difficult to overestimate the truly outstanding role that the Bolshevik Party played in the preparation of the Great October Revolution. Under Lenin's leadership, it painstakingly gathered the forces of the proletariat, armed them with an understanding of its world-historical mission, and prepared them for decisive battles to overthrow the bourgeois system. By the example of Western European countries, in particular Germany, where in 1917-1918 many objective prerequisites for the proletarian revolution were also present, one can easily see what leads to the absence or weakness of a revolutionary Marxist party of the working class capable of rousing the masses to a socialist revolution. On the contrary, the experience of Russia, where a truly revolutionary proletarian party of a new type, which has resolutely separated itself from the opportunists, has been created, convincingly shows what miracles the revolutionary energy of the proletarian masses and of all working people can work under the leadership of its Marxist-Leninist vanguard. The greatest historical achievement of the Bolshevik party was the implementation of Lenin's plan for the proletarian revolution. By standing at the head of the working class and of all working people, the party was able not only to turn the course of Russia's development, but also to radically change the fate of humanity.
The Great October Socialist Revolution was prepared by the entire course of Russia's economic, social, and political development during the period of capitalism. An analysis of the social structure of the country shows that Russian society is sufficiently mature for a socialist revolution (the pronounced polarization of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the far-reaching process of differentiation of the petty-bourgeois strata and the rapprochement of their poorest part with the working class, the possibility of rallying the majority of the people under the leadership of the proletariat to fight the oppression of capital). By the autumn of 1917, it became obvious that the solution of the most important problems of the country's life was no longer possible within the existing bourgeois system. Immediately after the overthrow of the autocracy, the question of the socio - political maturity of the main classes of Russian society and their ability to find a way out of the current "dead end" situation became particularly acute. Life has shown that the bourgeoisie was unable to prevent the impending national catastrophe. Only the proletariat, led by the Leninist Party, was able not only to point out to the people the true causes of the national crisis, but was also the only force capable of proposing a concrete program of social renewal of the country and of rousing the broad masses of the working people to its realization. The main question of the 20th century is capitalism or socialism? - it was decided in Russia in October 1917 in favor of socialism.
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