Russian Revolution
City Life and the Revolution, 1917-1936
Abstract
This paper asks whether if the city dwellers didn’t have deplorable living conditions, would they have staged a rebellious urban population? Did the shortage of basic commodities spark the urban and army uprising and was that shortage inevitable?
Thesis statement: It argues that good living conditions in the city could have averted the rebellion, deficit of basic necessities ignited the revolution and that the shortage was avoidable
Overview
In 1917, there were a number of uprisings in Russia. This is referred to as the Russian Revolution. The revolution was made by Communist revolutionaries against Tsarist autocracy. It was lead by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Both rural peasantry and city dwellers engaged actively in the revolution. However, in cities, the reasons for the uprising were different from the reasons of the rural peasantry.
Urban conditions
In the 1890’s, Russia was gearing towards the upcoming industrial revolution. The factors that define an industrial society such as ironworks and factories required workforce. To take those opportunities, many rural peasants migrated to the towns for employment. The industrialization attracted more rural population and the dwellings in urban areas got less and less comfortable. To accommodate the population streaming in, people were forced to live in tightly packed areas. This resulted in problems that affect overpopulated areas. There was poor and cramped housing. Drainage was poor. The industrial workers were poorly paid and were denied their job rights by being fired whenever they tried to join unions. Also, the union organizers were attacked by the government.
The industrial workers were overworked as they mostly worked between 11 to 14 hours a day with no weekly rests. There were huge taxes and tariffs on their wages. There were not given any medical attention if accidents happened to them at their work. The then government didn’t want to support better wages for the workers as it feared that in so doing, it would drive foreign investment away. The government refused to address their pleas. Next, the workers turned the factories into organizing centers.
The rural to urban migration of workers formed informal brotherhoods, known as zemliachestva, which were made of workers who had migrated from the same area. The zemliachestva were crucial in that they retained the peasant values of egalitarianism and collective action. Also, the ties brought about by the zemliachestva kept alive the hostility between the “masters” and the workers’ for their objective. The working conditions were bad on the uneducated and the educated alike. However, when the workers who were better educated joined them, the uprising was more effective as they seared into the minds of those workers ideas of better working conditions. Also, compared to the rural areas, the cities had good connections with the outside world,thus, the revolutionaries intellectuals had integrated Marxist ideas from Western Europe. The urban dwellers were had access to social and political order. The oppressive government, the poor working conditions in the industries and the disgruntled workers were factors that fueled the revolution in 1917.
Shortage of commodities
On the International Women’s Day Festival in February 23, 1917, disgruntled women working in the industries left the industries to demonstrate over food shortage and rising food prices which brought famine to the cities. In the streets, they chanted slogans, “Bread!” and “Give us Bread!” The price of commodities had sky-rocketed to six-fold by January 1917. Cities, and mostly St. Petersburg (then Petrogad) were hard hit by the shortage (Seventeen Moments in Soviet History). In Southern Russia, grains and flour were in excess; yet, ironically, the Northern Russians were starving. The railway transportation system, which was crucial in transporting that food, had broken down and the railway officials were discriminative (Alexander & Alexander, 2007 p. 30). The officials declined to give cars that would ensure food was transported north but it allowed the elite get food because, “articles of luxury, expensive fruits…did come to the city.” People would also spend a lot of time in waiting lines, mostly forty hours per week, and many people would not even get the little food rations that there were.
On February 24, 1917, men too engaged in the protests after being endorsed by political and social lobbyists thereby making almost all people go on a strike. Lenin who had been in Switzerland was allowed to pass through the German territory and in April 1917, arrived in Petrograd in a sealed railway car. On arriving, he joined the general public in protesting for “peace, land, and bread.” The military, which had ceased to become loyal to the Tsar either mutinied or joined the protests. Tsar Nicholas passed the throne to his brother Michael Alexandrovich, who declined on the reason that he would hold the throne if only the Duma would elect him.
In the 18th century, Britain and Western Europe had an agricultural revolution whereby better agricultural tools and scientific farming methods came into use. Russia never took part in that revolution and instead, used farming methods that it still used for the last thousand years. Also, the Bolsheviks, the Whites, the Anarchists and other seceding nationalities used to get food produced by the peasantry with little or no compensation. During the First World War, Russia needed soldiers to fight the war. Fifteen million men were drawn from the farms to fight the war. Also, the trains had to be used for the war. These poor farming methods, the seizing of the peasantry food, the use of men who were farmers in the war and diverting the trains to war; led to poor food production in the villages, lack of transportation means, thus, reduction of the quantity of the supplies taken to urban areas. Even at the front-line, the army got very little food supplies and the fatalities increased. The army lost enthusiasm of the war and lost confidence with the Tsar. They were not ready to fight for and die for a government that didn’t look unto its needs. The greatly frustrated army and navy mutinied against the government. A telegram sent by Nicholas II to General Sergei Khabalov, chief of Petrograd military district, commanded him to halt the disorders in the Petrograd streets which took a heavy toll on Russia which was then in war with both Germany and Austria. Despite the soldiers obeying the orders of the military chief to counter the riots, army officers of lower ranks mutinied triggering mutiny across the force which spread in one night. The very soldiers that were sent by the government to stop the riots joined the demonstrations. With some of the rioters armed and the soldiers who had mutinied, they fought and defeated the police, who in turn joined in the demonstrations. There was lawlessness in the capital Petrograd. In 1916, the Okhranka, the branch of security police in Petrograd, had written a report predicting of a “possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.” When at last Nicholas II was defeated, he stepped down from the thrown, had a futile attempt to handle over the throne to his brother and subsequently ended the three century-old Romanov dynasty.
Preview
Based on the arguments of imposing huge tariffs and taxes, poor wages, lack of job rights, poor working conditions, poor sanitation in the urban areas, and crammed housing; these factors were vital in triggering the revolution. The aforementioned factors, except crammed housing, were the complaints of the urban dwellers. Crammed housing was significant in that it formed a medium through which more workers would learn of the social and political order in Russia.
Shortage of commodities was another crucial factor that triggered the uprising. On the International Women’s Day in February 23, 1917, women workers and wives took advantage of the day to go to the streets to demonstrate about the shortage of commodities which had lead to increased prices. It was that first demonstration that attracted men too. Even the soldiers too took interest in the protests as them too were facing food shortage in the battle. Based on that reason, the soldiers saw the logic of the protesters, mutinied and them too, joined the riots creating lawlessness.
The food shortage was avoidable. When the railway transport system got out of order, the railway officials could have given cars to transport food from South to North. The Tsar could have addressed the public outcry before it got out of control. The Tsar could have ensured that Russia employed better farming methods like in Britain and Western Europe which could have offered food security.

References
“An on-line archive of primary source materials on Soviet history”, Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, accessed April 7, 2012, http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php
Petrunkevitch, A. & Petrunkevitch, A. Et Al, The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement. Teddington, Middlesex: Echo Library, 2007.