In This the Eighth Blog of November

Emily Bashaw

Blog Post #8

            Russia: a country known worldwide for its near constant inner turmoil over the past couple hundred years. From tsars to communist dictators to a near free democracy, Russia has had its fair share of civil wars and revolutions to overthrow the government of the time. Perhaps one of the most prominent of Russian wars is known as the “Russian Revolution,” a war that overthrew tsars once and for all.

            The Russian Revolution took place in 1917. It was a series of wars that led to the eventual removal of the Tsarist Autocracy and the installation of the communist Soviet Union at the head of the Russian government. Perhaps the most important war of the revolution was known as the Bolshevik Revolution. In November of 1917, power was shared between a weak provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet (Reed). Led by Vladimir Lenin and his new Marxist ideals, the Bolshevik party overthrew the extremely weak provisional government through a near bloodless coup d’état. Immediately what was known as the White Army fought the Bolshevik Red Army in a series of battles, but the Bolsheviks had won and relative peace was restored (Riasanovsky). Only this time, it was under the communist Lenin dictatorship instead of the tsars that had ruled before.

            According to Samuels’ Comparative Politics, the definition of a revolution is, “armed conflict within a sovereign state between insurgents and the state, in which both the insurgents and the state claim an allegiance of the significant proportion of the population; authority over the state is forcibly transferred from the state to the insurgents,” (Samuels 269). In other words, a revolution is a civil war in which the rebel side succeeds in overthrowing the current government despite both sides having a great deal of support from the population.

A sovereign state is one that is completely autonomous and is not ruled by any outside force – Russia fits the bill. In this case, the insurgents are the Bolshevik party led by Lenin and the state is what is left from the weak tsarist government of old. Both sides have numerous people supporting them. The “white” side has millions of people and the number of supporters for the “red” side is clear with the amount of revolutions and protests leading up to this final war (“History”). The tsarist government still insisted claim over the Russian government, but the Bolsheviks with their Marxist ideas were led by Lenin to overthrow the government and claim rightful authority over the state (Reed). This was only achieved through the shedding of thousands of lives on both sides of the war until the insurgents finally came out on top victorious.

This Bolshevik/Russian Revolution is a “by the book” revolution. All components of Samuels’ definition are found in the revolution. There is a clear, powerful insurgent and state side. Both the state and the insurgents claimed the same government to be rightfully theirs and after numerous battles and the loss of thousands of lives, the insurgents finally rose victorious and completely overthrew the tsar system of government that had ruled the Russian land for hundreds of years. In this instance, the definition is perfect and does not be to be changed at all.

Work Cited

Reed, John. Ten Days that Shook the World. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1922. Web.

Riasanovsky, Nichlas V., Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia, 7th Edition, University Press, 2005.

"Russian Revolution." History. History. Web. 9 Nov 2012.

Samuels, David J. Comparative Politics. 1st Ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2012. 123-24. Print.