Chapter 7.3.6: The October Revolution

The Provisional Government in Russia was not able to establish order following the February Revolution. The effectiveness of the government was weakened by conflicts with the so-called “revolutionary democracy”, represented by various workers, peasants and soldiers committees and councils, where left wing forces were in charge. Over time those forces tried to gain more and more power to themselves.

This situation was used by the bolsheviks or the communists, led by Vladimir Ujlanov, who used the pseudonym Lenin. The bolsheviks believed that the main driving force in history was the class struggle between the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeoisie (middle class). In this fight the working class had to take initiative, take control by force in a revolution and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The bolsheviks believed that after taking power in Russia a world revolution would follow, which would topple capitalism everywhere. With populist slogans and demagoguery they were able to grow support and in October 1917 they initiated a coup.


Päevaleht on the 26th of October 1917: “New revolution. The Provisional Government has been toppled. The power is in the hands of the Council of the Representatives of Workers and Soldiers. Some ministers have been imprisoned. St. Petersburg´s army and cossacks did not support the Provisional Government. The Army has said that soldiers support anyone who promises peace. The Council of the Republic has been disbanded. New government has made its priority making peace and organising consumer goods and land.”

At the time when nationalists were busy with pushing for and later using the possibilities of autonomy, bolsheviks quickly gained prominence in Estonia. Whilst in March there were only about 120 communists in the party, by October there were 8 thousand. In September the communists won in the Tallinn and Narva council elections, in October they achieved a leading position in the Estonian Soviets Executive Committee. The latter formed a uniting body between all the various workers councils.

Their success was mainly behind populism, and their messages quickly spread through agitation. After years of war the people gladly accepted the slogan “Down with war!” that the bolsheviks used, without asking how it would be possible. The people without any land in the countryside were captivated by the promise to redistribute land and the factory workers in the cities by the promise to increase their living standards. In 1917 roughly a third of the population of Estonia supported the socialists and communists. It should also be noted that pretty much the entire population of Russians in Estonia at the time, the soldiers and the workers also supported the communists.

In October the All-Russian Communist Party began preparations for a coup. The Estonian Revolutionary War Committee sent its comissars to the army units in Tallinn, as well as railway stations and phone exchanges on the 23rd of October. Red Guard units started patrolling the streets. Three days later the news about the successful coup was given to the leading army officers and an oath of loyalty towards Lenin's government was taken from them. Viktor Kingissepp, the deputy leader of the war committee, marched with two soldiers to the cabinet of Jaan Poska and took control of the governorate.



Viktor Kingissepp (1888-1922)

After taking power, the bolsheviks started curbing civil rights and demanding the subjugation of Estonian national goals to the interests of the international proletariat. Nationally minded parties were banned and newspapers were closed, public meetings were banned, and many prominent politicians were imprisoned. Democratically elected local councils were replaced by the soviets of the representatives of working people, courts with revolutionary tribunals and the municipal police with the red guard.

On the 23rd of December 80% of Narva voted in favour of joining the governorate of Estonia, the permission to do so was given by Lenin. In January 1918 the question of independence (in depth in the next chapter) rose within the Central Committee as well. The bolsheviks, led by Jaan Anvelt, Viktor Kingissepp and Hans Pöögelmann would oppose it, whilst the social-democrats, like Gustav Suits, Johannes Semper and Jaan Kärner, supported it. The bolsheviks would throw the nationally minded socialists out of the central committee for this.

On the 18th of January 1918, the Russian Constituent Assembly would finally gather, where the social-democrats would hold the majority. As the communists had lost the vote and the assembly would not agree to become their puppet, the assembly was quickly disbanded.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

 Hello, dear reader. I have compiled the contents of this blog over the course of one year. The chapters have been written in a way that they expect one to have read the preceeding ones to get the full picture. Unless you are already versed in Estonian history I would recommend you to follow this principle. If you have any questions or anything else to say, do not hesitate to make comments.  As it was a hobby project, I went more in-depth on topics that interested me, do not hold it against me :P   I hope you will enjoy this journey :)
Read more

Chapter 0: Prelude

Image
Estonian history begins with the Livonian Crusade in the early 13th century. The written sources before that time period are few and far between, so the time before the 13th century is classified as “muinasaeg” or “ancient time”. Most of the information about that period has been gathered via archeology. The earliest possible mention of Estonia could be from 98 AD, when the Roman historian Tacitus wrote in “Germania” about a people called “Aestii”, who lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic sea. However, it is very much questionable if he really referred to ancient Estonians. Estonia was covered by a glacier up until about 11 000 years ago. It was also around that time when the first people arrived here. Over the course of the following millennia there were several other waves of migration, during which there were seismic shifts in culture, for example how pottery was decorated or how people were buried. Modern Estonians are basically a mixture of these people, genetically speaking. ...
Read more

Chapter 1: The Ancient Era

Image
Estonia was not a single united country. Instead it was divided into loads of smaller “counties”, which were something between a tribe and a country. A map showcasing the approximate size and locations of ancient counties. (Fun fact: in Finnish Estonia is called Viro (from Virumaa) and in Latvian it is called Igaunija (from Ugandi) As can be seen from the map, the counties on the border were larger than the ones which were inland. The reason behind this is theorised to be the fact that border areas were more vulnerable, so it motivated smaller counties to peacefully unite into larger ones in order to be more powerful. However, there is a possibility that eventually the counties would have united to form a single kingdom. People exclusively identified themselves with their specific county during earlier periods, but by the 13th century there were already some specific mentions of “Estonians” and “Estonia”. The chiefs of all counties had annual meetings in Raikküla, which was in Harjumaa...
Read more