Bolshevik agitation in the Russian Army: March through November, 1917

Abstract

World War I ended a year earlier for Russia than for the other combatants: it had to, for by the end of 1917 the Russian Array no longer existed. The dissolution of this array during 1917 was inextricably bound- up with the degeneration which characterized Russian social and economic life during the same period. It is inaccurate to claim that V. I. Lenin and his Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Party played only a subsidiary role in the dissolution of the array and the degeneration of Russian society. To describe the Bolsheviks as mere manipulators would be fatal to a comprehensive understanding of what happened in 1917. The position of Lenin and his party in Russia during the first part of 1917 was tenuous to say the least. Here stood a party which glorified the urban industrial worker to the exclusion of all other classes. On one side of the BolBheviks stood a hostile peasantry to whom the Bolshevik tenet of land collectivization sounded like serfdom. On the other side stood the Russian Army whose sacrifices during World War I attested to its devotion to the Allied cause, a cause at which Lenin and his party scoffed with great vigor.