<>1917mr02:Russian tsarist dynasty collapsed under the weight of the catastrophic war [some background statistics = McC2:2-7 | Some further data on economic and social aspects of this revolutionary year = McC2:59-48-50, 59-112]
*--WW1 was in its third year
*--The fall of Nicholas II was the first (and the youngest) of four great imperial monarchical disintegrations over the next 18 months:
*1613:1917; Russian Romanov         (304 years)
*1415:1918; German Hohenzollern   (503 years)
*1282:1918; Austrian Habsburg       (636 years)
*1453:1918; Ottoman Turkish          (465 years)
*--By the time the war ended, even the victors (with the exception of USA) found themselves in a state of economic collapse

<>1917mr02:oc25; Petrograd | A Provisional Government  (all too provisional, all too little government, some have said) announced its formation [W] in the aftermath of "The February Revolution" (sometimes called the Second Russian Revolution) [McC2:20-3 | VSB,3:881 | BNE:224-6]
*--At this time the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies was organized [Chamberlin,1:431-3]
*--These two amorphous bodies vied with one another for almost nine months in a situation described as "Dual power"
*--The Provisional Government went through several crises causing a sequence of coalitions to follow one after the other in the effort to stabilize a revolutionary situation in the midst of World War One. The five main crises =

  • Provisional Government's secret promise to Allies to honor Nicholas II's war agreements and continue the disastrous fighting
  • "The July days", an unsuccessful armed uprising against Provisional government and for all power to the Soviets
  • "The Kornilov Affair", an unsuccessful armed coup attempt spearheaded by ex-tsarist generals
  • The contest between Provisional Government and Soviet terminated when the Soviet, now armed and under firm Bolshevik leadership, seized power on October 25 (November 7 NS)
  • The fate of the Constituent Assembly [8-hop LOOP], though technically elected and convened after the defeat of the Provisional Government, must be included as the final sorry crisis afflicting the Provisional Government
*1917fe:1918; Narodno-sotsialisticheskaia (Trudovaia) partiia [NSs] came alive as Peshekhonov, Miakotin and other veterans of the 1905 Revolution were joined by Sergei Mel'gunov, ME Berezin and others who became supporters of the Provisional Government
*--Mel'gunov's memoirs of eventual Provisional Government defeat = The Bolshevik Seizure of Power
*1917fe27:oc25; Russian Gen. Boldyrev kept diary which covered full eight month period of Provisional Government [VRX:189-226]
*1917fe27:+; Pollock, An Outsider's View [P20:102]
*--Years later, a key activist, Alexander Kerensky, worked with Professor Robert Browder to gather and publish three volumes of translated primary documents [coded "B&K" in SAC] relating to the "Provisional Government" in the midst of war and revolution
*--Modern mechanized total war challenged European "liberal" traditions everywhere. The Russian Provisional Government was just about the last gasp of Russian "liberalism". Russian liberalism died in combat, so to speak, as it fumbled the most important issue inherited from the old regime = WW1 on the eastern front
*--After the defeat of the Provisional Government at the time of the Soviet Revolution, some activists out of the old 1905 liberal tradition associated with various military efforts to overthrow the Soviet Republic in the era of "internal war" or revolutionary civil war
*--It could be argued that the legacy of the 1905 Revolution was revived to some degree in the Soviet period called "NEP"
*--Or much later in the Gorbachev era of "perestroika", or the post-Soviet governments of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin
\\
*--William Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution

<>1917mr02:1918jy28; USA joined WW1 in its final 18 months. In the USA and around the world, the Russian Revolution seemed proof that WW1 was a prelude to global revolution or reform [see references to Arno Mayer's study below]. Many deplored this possibility, many welcomed it, but nearly everyone expected it. USA President Woodrow Wilson welcomed the possibility for global reform; Lenin welcomed global revolution
*--Only after the collapse of the Russian old regime did USA feel free to enter WW1. Now USA would be in alliance with "democracies" against "imperialists" =

"The Allies"
England (now wasn't it a "British Empire"?), France (still possessing imperial domains), Italy, and newly tsarless Russia
vs.
"Central Powers"
German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Turkish Empire

*--USA pundit Randolph Bourne expressed his feeling of betrayal as USA entered the war. His article, "The War and the Intellectuals" [W], claimed that the American intelligentsia was swept up in war fever
*--The American press followed the early campaigns [pix] with enthusiasm
*1917my26:USA President Woodrow Wilson gave one version of WW1, The Idealistic View [P20:77 | More of Wilson's ideas about the Great War =  DPH:346-51]
*--The hypertext LOOP on the name of President Woodrow Wilson below provides a more detailed look at the following developments =
*--USA optimism about the the possibility of global reform was shaken by the "Ten Days that Shook the World", namely, the 1917oc25:Soviet Revolution in Russia. Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik Party came to power. USA was especially shaken by the 1918mr03:Brest-Litovsk Treaty which confirmed formal Bolshevik withdrawal from WW1 and the cessation of hostilities on the eastern front. USA felt doubly betrayed by Russia. First, its revolution turned very radical. Second, Russia left the war
*--USA remained a belligerent and the main material support for Allied efforts on the western front until 1918no11:WW1's bitter end, eight months after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and Russia's withdrawal from the war
*--America was determined to win a central place for itself on the bargaining table at the end of the war and to restrain the momentum of the new Soviet regime in Russia, led by Lenin and the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Bolsheviks) with international ambitions perhaps even grander than those of USA President Woodrow Wilson
\\
*--Arno Mayer, Wilson vs. Lenin: Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918, might best be read in the following page order: 1-4, 35, 329, 344-52(mid), 206-210, 296-304, 339-44 , 352(mid)-393. Here is Mayer's conclusion [TXT]
*--The best account of the decline in Russian-American relations in these months is George Frost Kennan, Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920 (1956-58)
*--Also see Kennan’s briefer but more comprehensive Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (1961). Kennan became a major figure in US foreign policy in the early years of the Cold War

<>1917mr02:Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1 [McC1:102-3 | McC2:23-4 | DRR:20-1 | DPH:363-4 | GRH:297-8 | DIR2:477-8]

<>1917mr03:+; Edward Heald letter described Russian revolutionary events [ASEER#4,16-17 (??):116-57,118-33 | WRH:581-95]
*--Graham R. Taylor described events in Orenburg Province [WRH:604-15]

<>1917mr03:Petrograd. The tsar’s brother Grand Prince Michael Aleksandrovich refused the crown pending convocation of a constituent assembly and the creation of a new legal basis for government in Russia [W] [GRH:298-9 | McC2:14-16 | DIR2:478 | Russian GDR:511]. That never happened

<>1917mr03:Izvestiia report by Executive Committee of Petrograd Soviet about Provisional Government [McC2:26-7]

<>1917mr03 [mr15?]:Ukraine Central Rada assumed leadership of national movement

<>1917mr06:Russian Provisional Government declared its program, including its readiness to continue World War One on same terms as before the abdication of Nicholas II [GRH:308-9 | DPH:364-6 | ORW:177-8]
*--The Provisional Government saw itself as the heir to years of political opposition to tsarist authority. Now was a chance to realize a much stunted and delayed progressive promise of the 20th century. The efforts of the Russian people had finally overthrown the old regime. "A new, free Russia is born"
*--The decree briefly accounted the recent history of revolutionary resistance to tsarist authority. "By the act of October 17, 1905 [ID], under the pressure of the awakened popular forces [EG], Russia was promised constitutional liberties. These promises however, were not kept [EG]. The First Duma, interpreter of the nation's hopes, was dissolved [ID]. The Second Duma suffered the same fate [ID], and the Government, powerless to crush the national will, decided by the act of June 3, 1907 [ID], to deprive the people of a part of those rights of participation in legislative work which had been granted"
*--With the outbreak of WW1, the tsarist regime was "in a state of moral decay, alienated from the people indifferent to the fate of our native land, and steeped in the infamy of corruption"
*--The Provisional Government "considers it to be its sacred and responsible duty to fulfill the hopes of the nation, and lead the country out onto the bright path of free civic organization"
*--However, there is a war under way. The "spirit of lofty patriotism" which prevailed against the tsarist regime "will also inspire our valiant soldiers on the field of battle". In other words, the momentum and energy of the successful revolution now must be refocused on the international war, and the goal of that war is victory. The Government will give the army all it needs "to bring the war to a victorious conclusion"
*--In that connection, all tsarist alliances against the Central Powers will be honored and all tsarist agreements with the allies will be fulfilled
*--But don't lose sight of the bright future. "Within the shortest time possible" a Constituent Assembly will be convened to decide how revolutionary Russia is to be ruled in this new democratic and progressive age
*--By the summer, former SR terrorist, Boris Savinkov, served as liaison between the Provisional Government and Military Headquarters

<>1917mr07:Russian Provisional Government declared full reinstatement of the constitution of the Grand Duchy of Finland [W]

<>1917mr08:Russian Emperor Nicholas II made final address as tsar [PFM:472-3]

<>1917mr09:12; Russian Provisional Government Naval Minister Guchkov wrote general Alekseev [Chamberlin,1:435-8]

<>1917mr11:Petrograd Soviet announced agreement w/Petrograd Association of Manufacturers re. working conditions [McC2:60-1]

<>1917mr14:Petrograd Soviet appealed to people of world [McC2:24-6]

<>1917mr26:Peasant Union, resolution [GRH:373-4]

<>1917mr27:Russian Provisional Government war aims [McC1:100-101 | Chamberlin,1:440-1]
*--There were those who still dreamed that revolutionary Russia on the eastern front might hold up its end of the bargain with allies still fighting the grim stalemate on the western front

<>1917ap03:Vladimir Lenin published "April Theses" [W] [DRR:23-6 | McC2:51-4 | DPH:366-8 | WRH:597-9]
*--For years efforts have been made to picture Lenin, returning now through Germany on a diplomatically "sealed train", as a hireling of German Imperial power [McC2:138-40]

<>1917ap05:Petrograd Soviet resolution in support of Provisional Government [McC2:26-7]

<>1917ap08:Leo Kamenev criticized Lenin’s “April Theses” from a moderate and less militant perspective on Russian events [McC2:54-5]

<>1917ap13:Miliukov memo on exclusion of Russia from international conference [McC2:45-6]

<>1917ap20:Russian Provisional Government Foreign Minister Pavel Miliukov's note to allies on the question of war aims caused scandal and forced his resignation. This was the first crisis among post-monarchical, revolutionary political leadership in Russia [Chamberlin,1:444 | McC2:46-7 | DPH:368-70]
*--The catastrophic war had ripped Russia apart, discontent was rife throughout the Russian ranks and within the civilian population, and yet the new Foreign Minister felt justified to bicker with allies about what the now revolutionary Russian Empire might be expected to gain from the war if it were only willing to continue to "sacrifice" itself on the field of battle
*--In 1918, Miliukov returned to politics when he sided with the militant "White Guard", anti-Bolshevik opposition
*--Miliukov's note inspired quick response = The Petrograd Soviet offered their own very surprising statement on war aims

<>1917ap21:Petrograd Soviet resolution on war aims [GRH:336]

<>1917ap25:Petrograd Soviet called International socialist conference on WW1 [McC2:47-8]

<>1917ap29:Lenin on national minorities [McC2:48-50]

<>1917ap30:Guchkov resigned as Naval Minister in connection with the ap20 scandal [GRH:396] After more than 12 years near the center of political events in this new era of public involvement in Russian governmental affairs, Guchkov eventually fled Russia and went into emigration

<>1917my:Council of Elders of railroad workers union, appeal to Factory and Mills Committees [Fabrichnye i zavodskie komitety] [DRR:65-8]
*--Russian situation described [McC2:28-9]

<>1917my02 (my15 NS):Petrograd Soviet issued appeal to "Socialists of All Countries", calling for "peace without annexations or indemnities on the basis of the self-determination of peoples is the formula adopted unreservedly by the proletarian mind and heart [...]. || The Russian Revolutionary Democracy appeals first to you, Socialists of the Allied countries. You must not permit the voice of the Provisional Government of Russia to remain the only voice in the Entente. || You must force your governments to state definitely and clearly that the platform of peace without annexations or indemnities, on the basis of the self-determination of peoples is also their platform [...]. || The Russian Revolutionary Democracy appeals to you, Socialists of the Austro-German alliance: You cannot allow the Armies of your Governments to become the executioners of Russian liberty [...]. || In order to unite these efforts, the Petrograd Soviet ... has decided to take the initiative in calling for an international conference of all the Socialist parties and factions in every country
*--The Soviet appeal was in direct response to the Miliukov note on Provisional Government war aims [ID] ALSO, GO ap21 & ap25 above
*--Russia, the revolutionary ally on the eastern front, appealed to allies on the western front to help define practicable and progressive war aims, and to end the imperialist war on all fronts
*--Within 5 days [1917ap26(NS):WDC] US diplomatic figure Elihu Root [ID] delivered an important address on the "great peace movement" [RWP1,1:114-21]
\\
*--Mayer:194-5

<>1917my05:Russia | First Coalition organized and issued declaration [Chamberlin,1:447-9 | McC2:27]
*--Russian woman Sofia Panina became Deputy Minister of State Welfare in the Provisional Government: Memoirs [DRW:366-71]

<>1917my09:no15; Moscow | Letters of female revolutionary Lusik Lisinova [StH:129-36]

<>1917my25:All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasant Deputies [GRH:375-8]

<>1917je:Russia. "From a Memorandum of Kirsanov Landowners..." [RRC1,3:507-10]

<>1917je01:French parliamentary debate on peace (follows year of mutinous unrest among allied troops)
\\
*--Mayer:206-210 top

<>1917je03:Factory and Mills Committees [Fabrichnye i zavodskie komitety] conference, resolution re. industrial disorganization [Chamberlin,1:449-51]

<>1917je03:je24; Petrograd | First All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The dominant parties were SRs and Mensheviks. Some resolutions [GRH:360-71 | McC2:29-31 | Chamberlin,1:451-3,456-7]

<>1917je07:Russian First Coalition Food Minister A.V. Peshekhonov reported to Soviet [B&K | DRR:60-5]

<>1917je07:France | William Pressey described being injured by German gas attack [Eye:473-4]

<>1917je08:Russian Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Central Committee voted for je10:armed demonstration; je09:cancelled

<>1917je09:Petrograd | First All-Russian Congress of Soviets
*--Bolsheviks were unable to pass their resolutions for immediate dissolution of the State Duma and the State Council [DPH:370-1]
*--Website devoted to this Congress

<>1917je10:Ukrainian Rada,1st Universal declaration [Hunczak | GRH:435-44 | DRR:76-79]| Provisional Government reply [Chamberlin,1:454-5]

<>1917je10:Izvestiia reported Soviet appeals to workers not to demonstrate [McC2:29-31]

<>1917je16:Russian First Coalition Minister Aleksandr Kerenskii supported plan for military offensive [McC2:31-2]

<>1917je18:Russia launched its last ill-fated "June Offensive", the Galician offensive, on the WW1 eastern front [GRH:425-35 | McC2:31-2]
*--Germany and the Revolution

<>1917je18:Executive Committee of All-Russian Soviets of Peasant Deputies joined w/All-Russian Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies [GRH:383]

<>1917je28:Ukraine, Kiev | Provisional Government sent delegation to Ukraine Rada

<>1917jy02:Memo from provincial bank [RRC1,3:510-11]

<>1917jy02:Constitutional Democratic Party [KDs; Kadets] ministers resigned

<>1917jy03:jy05; Petrograd. July Days [GRH:444-65]
*--SR activists penned justification for the armed uprising of machine-gun regiments against the Provisional Government
*--Soviet of peasant deputies response [Chamberlin,1:455-6 | McC2:32-3 | DPH:371-3]

<>1917jy04:Soviet appeal in connection with July Days demonstration [McC2:32-3]

<>1917jy05:SBv?? proclamation [McC2:33]

<>1917jy05:Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) printing press seized.  Lenin & Grigorii Zinoviev fled as the July Days uprising collapsed
*--They were soon émigrés in Finland

<>1917jy05:jy12; Finnish law of the Sejm on Supreme Power [DRR:79-82]

<>1917jy07:Leon Trotsky (leader of Mezhraiontsy [Inter-district Activists]), Leo Kamenev (Bolshevik), and others arrested in the aftermath of the "July Days"

<>1917jy07:Lvov resigned [GRH:470-1]

<>1917jy08:Aleksandr Kerenskii became Prime Minister [GRH:471]

<>1917jy16:Ukraine. Rada 2nd declaration [Hunczak]

<>1917jy18:Kerensky appointed general Lavr Kornilov commander in chief

<>1917jy23:Aleksandr Kerenskii organized Russian Provisional Government's Second Coalition cabinet [GRH:479 | McC2:34]

<>1917jy25c:David Soskice memoirs re. Second Coalition [McC2:34-7]

<>1917jy26:au03; Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) "6th" party conference; Mezhraiontsy & Leon Trotsky joined Bolsheviks

<>1917au:Lenin wrote preface to his unfinished essay "State and Revolution" [W], an analysis of the meaning of the Paris Commune and Marxist teachings on the revolutionary state [CCC2,2:919-33 | BMC1:622-4 | BMC4:726-9]

<>1917au:Podvoiskii report on Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) military organization [DRR:37-41]

<>1917au09:Russian Fourth Duma ceased to function [GRH:412-13]

<>1917au13:au15; Moscow State Conference [GRH:482]

<>1917au14:Chkheidze declaration of United Democracy [GRH:496-504]

<>1917au21:Riga [Latvia], a vital Russian Imperial seaport, was occupied by German forces [GRH:584-6]


1917au21:Petrograd | library of the Winter Palace
Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii,
Photograph by K. Bulla

<>1917au25:au30; Russian Revolution threatened by military coup d’état, the "Kornilov Affair" [GRH:513-33 | DPH:373-4 | McC2:37-43]
*--Military commanders blamed civilians and their feeble civilian revolutionary government for the tragic failures on the eastern front. Some of them were contemplating creation of a war-time military dictatorship

<>1917au27:Aleksandr Kerenskii sent telegram vs. Kornilov [McC2:37-8]. Kornilov replied [38-9 (w/observations of N. Ukraintsev, member of special Committee of Inquiry,39-43)]. The scramble to resist an apparent imminent military coup d'etat mobilized many willing to fight against Kornilov but not for Kerenskii

<>1917au28:Simbirsk provincial Commissar [F/] reported [RRC1,3:511-12]
*--On that day, Kornilov [pix] issued an appeal to the Russian people declaring that "our great Motherland is perishing". He declared "that the Provisional Government under the pressure of the Bolshevik majority of the Soviets, acts in full agreement with he plans of the German General Staff, simultaneously with the impending descent of hostile forces on the Riga coast, destroys the Army and upsets the country from within". He continued, "Let all in whose breasts beat Russian hearts, all who believe in God and His churches pray to the Lord God for the greatest miracle: the salvation of our native land". Then he made this personal declaration = "I, General Kornilov, the son of a Cossack peasant, declare to all that personally I want nothing except the preservation of Great Russia, and I vow to bring the people, through victory over the enemy, to he Constituent Assembly, at which the people will itself decide its own fate and choose its own form of government."   [Chamberlin,1:462]

<>1917au31:Petrograd Soviet heard SDs(b) resolution on need to mobilize against Kornilov [Chamberlin,1:462-4]

<>1917se:Petrograd Factory and Mills Committees [Fabrichnye i zavodskie komitety], conference3, resolution  [DRR:69-71]

<>1917se01:Aleksandr Kerenskii organized "Directory" as Second Coalition unraveled and declared Russia a republic [McC2:44] "Council of Five" [McC2:43-4]
*--Kornilov was arrested [GRH:533-9]

<>1917se02:Woodrow Wilson letter to Colonel Edward House called for creation of "American Inquiry" or "Peace Inquiry Bureau", a group of intellectuals who played the central role over the next four months in the composition of Wilson's "Fourteen Points" [Mayer:334-9]

<>1917se03:Soviet Central Executive Committee called for Democratic Conference; Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Central Committee supported

<>1917se03:Kronstadt. On eve of SOVIET REVOLUTION. Red Guard organized [McC2:132-4 | GRH:580]

<>1917se04:Leon Trotsky out of prison

<>1917se09:Social Democratic Party (mensheviks) & Social Revolutionary Party resigned from Central Committee of Soviet. SDs(m) and SRs were wilting in the intense political heat of revolution
*--Regional Soviet met in Finland with a Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) [SDs(b)] majority

<>1917se11:se14; Lenin called for an uprising [McC2:113-15]

<>1917se14:se22; Petrograd Democratic Conference [GRH:542-57]

<>1917se17:Volia narod [The Will of the People, a Social Revolutionary Party newspaper] editorial [Jones:62-3]

<>1917se19:Petrograd Democratic Conference decided to convoke All-Russian Democratic Conference (Provisional Council of the Republic, All-Russian Democratic Council, or "Pre-Parliament") [GRH:563-67]

<>1917se19:Moscow.  Soviet election, Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Executive Committee w/Nogin=president

<>1917se21:Petrograd Soviet resolution on question of political power in which All-Russian Democratic Conference was rejected in favor of Congress of Soviets [GRH:582-4]

<>1917se23:All-Russian Democratic Conference, meeting1 [GRH:564-7]
*--On same day, the planned All-Russian Soviet meeting cancelled because of opposition within military [GRH:603-4]

<>1917se24:?? Pre-Parliament (All-Russian Democratic Conference) opened; Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) walked out
*--Lenin returned in secret from Finland to Petrograd

<>1917se25:Aleksandr Kerenskii formed Third Coalition cabinet [GRH:558-63 | McC2:45]
*--Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee elected Leon Trotsky president [GRH:584]

<>1917se26:Petrograd Soviet resolution re. All-Russian Democratic Conference [GRH:567 | Chamberlin,1:464]

<>1917se28:Novaia zhizn' [The New Life], Maxim Gorky's newspaper, reported on why the SDs Menshevik faction was falling apart [W]

<>1917oc06:Delo naroda [The People's Cause], an SR newspaper, raised complicated issue of relationship between revolutionary and irregular political institutions -- the Soviets -- and the planned national Constituent Assembly [TXT]
*1917oc06:Petrograd | Provisional Government announced the formal dissolution of the Fourth State Duma [Russian GDR:512]
*1917oc06:Petrograd Soviet resolution against evacuation of Petrograd. The Soviet feared that opponents might be willing to surrender Petrograd, the home of radical opposition, to the Germans [GRH:580-2]

<>1917oc09:Petrograd HQ ordered part of Petrograd garrison to front.  Soldiers refused [GRH:587]
*--Petrograd Soviet organized Defense Committee; Lazimir = president [GRH:587-8; 594-7]

<>1917oc10:Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Central Committee resolution on the need to launch a revolutionary military attack on the Russian Provisional Government [Sukhanov | DRR:99]  Lenin was the author of the resolution [McC2:50-9 | WRH:600] International war was becoming also internal war

<>1917oc11:Leo Kamenev & Grigorii Zinoviev letter of opposition to SD(b) insurrection [McC2:115-17 | DRR:100-2]

<>1917oc11:oc13; Congress of Soviet of Northern Region [GRH:598-602]  Trotsky called for all power to the Soviet, in order to save Petrograd & Revolution
*--All-Russian conference of Factory and Mills Committees [Fabrichnye i zavodskie komitety] resolution [Reed,3:1]

<>1917oc12:Soviet Defense Committee (GO oc09:) renamed “Military Revolutionary Committee” [F/MRC] [GRH:588-9]

<>1917oc12:Congress of Public Men organized, a conservative group, alarmed by mounting disorder

<>1917oc13:de05; Baltic Fleet navy diary [VRX:131-88]
*1917oc:Russian Army Intelligence Report on the breakdown of military discipline [B&F:24-6]
*1917fa:Agrarian unrest again on the rise [McC2:62-6, 71-72]
*--Russia was physically and psychologically exhausted by WW1 [GO above]
*--The Soviet of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies was on the verge of declaring war on the war
*--Russia was in fact unable to attack or defend itself in either internal war or external war (on the eastern front) [McC2:45-8 on foreign affairs]

<>1917oc13:Petrograd Soviet soldiers section organized department of Workers' Guard, organization HQ & planned city-wide conference for late Oct

<>1917oc14:Soviet Central Executive Committee met (Gotz = president) [GRH:591-2]

<>1917oc15:Petrograd newspapers discussed anticipated Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) "move"

<>1917oc16:Petrograd Soviet (Kamenev =president) agreed to send observers to conference in Pskov called by general Cheremisov, commander in chief of northern front, and approved Lazimir report on MRC [GRH:589-90]
*--Trotsky spoke on the MRC and other issues [McC2:117-21]

<>1917oc16:Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Central Committee meeting [Jones:64-76]

<>1917oc17:Lenin discussed revolutionary military with Podvoiskii & Antonov-Ovseenko & other MRC activists [DRR:107-110 | Jones:108-128]

<>1917oc18:Petrograd Soviet newspaper Izvestiia published editorial vs. Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) [GRH:605-6] said they plan military revolutionary strike against Provisional Government, Central Executive Committee & Council of the Republic (All-Russian Democratic Conference?)

<>1917oc19:Petrograd Soviet (Leon Trotsky president) [GRH:613]

<>1917no02(NS):English statesman Arthur James Balfour sent public declaration in favor of the Zionist plan for a Jewish National Home [Israel] to head of the great European banking family, Lord Rothschild [BNE:298]
*--England continued to plan independently of other Allies for the future disposition of Ottoman Turkish Empire holdings
*1917no02:USA and Japan exchanged notes, known together as the Lansing-Ishii Agreement [TXT], which acknowledged Japan's "special interests" in China, but reaffirmed the Open Door policy in China

<>1917oc20:oc23; Red Guard conference [Articles of Service:Chamberlin,1:465-7; break w/Petrograd military district:467-8]

<>1917oc20:MRC activated [DRR:116-7]

<>1917oc21:MRC organized "Bureau" (Lazimir = president, Podvoiskii = vice president, Antonov-Ovseenko = secretary).  A commissar was assigned to each military unit.  Lazimir led delegation to Petrograd GHQ.  Polkovnikov opposed MRC command over Petrograd garrison [GRH:593-4]

<>1917oc22:Nikolai Sukhanov [ID] described how Trotsky aroused the peoples [P20:111]

<>1917oc23:Newspaper of the Petrograd Soviet, News [Izvestiia] raised question of need to make Soviets the permanent governmental institutions [Reed,2:3]

<>1917oc24:Council of the Republic, Aleksandr Kerenskii speech [StH:77-87]
*--Lenin letter to Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) called on them to take power [WRH:600-1]
*--Petrograd Soviet (Trotsky=president) [McC2:124-5 | GRH:616-17]
*--Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) printing press seized by Provisional Government military
*--Petrograd MRC circular sounded alarm [McC2:121-2 | DPH:375-6 | DRR:121-2 | Chamberlin,1:469-70]
*--Minutes of Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Central Committee meeting [DRR:122-5]
*--Stankevich described events of the day [McC2:122-4]

<>1917oc25:(NS no07) "Great October", October Revolution, or Soviet Revolution | Vladimir Lenin & Bolshevik Party came to power within Soviet of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies [SGv:17] The Soviets were councils of deputies selected in factories, regiments and villages, but they were under the leadership of a political party inclined toward one-party rule
*--P. Malianovich gave an eyewitness account of Military-Revolutionary Committee storming of the Winter Palace [StH:88-99]
*1917oc25:oc27; Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets [DPH:376-9 | BNE:226-7] Website devoted to this Congress
*--Elections to the Soviet Presidium dominated by SDs(b) nominees, but also included Mariia Spiridonova, seasoned member of SRs [ID] and now leading figure in a break-away group called Left Social Revolutionary Party [Left-SRs] who initially threw their lot in with the Bolsheviks, giving the appearance of coalition government in the Soviets
*1917oc26:Soviet of People's Commissars created as revolutionary government [Sovnarkom or Sovet narodnykh kommissarov], a revolutionary institution analogous to familiar council of ministers [GRH:619-20]
*1917oc26:Soviet Decree on agricultural land [McC2:247 | GRH:623-5 | Chamberlin,1:474-7 | DRR:156-9 | SGv:317-20]
*1917oc26:Soviet Decree on Peace [GRH:620-3 | Chamberlin,1:472-4 | DRR:154-6 | RFP3:93-5 | ORW:180-2 | Senn,2:] The Soviet Revolution came in resolute opposition to the continuation of WW1 on the eastern front
*1917oc26:Military-Revolutionary Committee proclamation [Reed appendix to ch5,#1=TXT | CCC2,2:1118-9]
*1917no:Klara Zetkin (1857-1933), the most political and most pro-Bolshevik of the German Social Democrats, offered her views on the broad significance of the Soviet Revolution [StH:137-41]
*1917:1919; Documents of Soviet History, v1 [DSH,1]
*1930no14:Turkish island Prinkipo | Thirteen years after this Revolution, Trotsky, who had been so central a figure in 1917 was now a political exile from Stalinist USSR [McC2:127-32]. Trotsky now signed the preface to his monumental memoir/history/apologia, History of the Russian Revolution [W] [Excerpts: BNE:227-33]
*--The next three years of Soviet Revolution can be thought to have three main aspects or phases =
  (1) 1917oc25:1918ja06; The first 3 months = consolidation of domestic state power in Soviet hands & suppression of the Constituent Assembly
  (2) 1917de16:1918mr03; Armistice then Brest-Litovsk treaty ending Russian involvement in WW1
  (3) 1918ja16:1920no14; Bolshevik/Soviet power in a violent struggle =
[3a] with domestic opposition (e.g., erstwhile supporters, the Left-SRs),
[3b] expanding into nearly 3 years of revolutionary civil war [McC2:134-8],
[3c] closely associated with European Allied military intervention
\\
*--Leonard Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy is the classic anti-Soviet study of political opposition to Soviet power
On the American and Soviet revolutionary traditions, see the following:
*--Hanna Arendt, On Revolution (NYC:1963), especially "The Revolutionary Tradition and Its Lost Treasure":217-285
*--Crane Brinton, Anatomy of Revolution (1938) (pb, NYC: 1952); read intro, then 14-27, 70-96, 250-79; follow index on American and Russian revolutions (Classic, but light & seriously dated)
*--Ethan T. Colton, Four Patterns of Revolution: Communist USSR, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, New Deal America (NYC:1964). Surprising perspective
*1984oc:CSinSH#26:672-708 (Robert Kelley on politics and ideas in USA and USSR)

<>1917oc25:Newspaper of the Petrograd Soviet, News [Izvestiia], editorial vs. Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) [GRH:614-16]

<>1917oc26:SRs published condemnation of Bolshevik/Soviet seizure of power [W]

<>1917oc27:Anti-Bolshevik Party press suppressed, the original act of Soviet censorship [SGv:18-19 | PS&C:130-1]
*--Related decree [McC2:190]
*--"Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland" appealed against the Soviet Revolution [Chamberlin,1:478-9]
*--Moscow conference of Businessmen passed resolution [Reed,1:5]

<>1917oc27:oc31; general Krasnov moved military forces toward Petrograd

<>1917oc28:Bourgeois newspaper reaction to October Revolution [Reed appendix to ch3,#2=TXT]

<>1917oc29:All-Russian Executive Committee of Railroad labor unions sponsored conference of socialist parties (SDs, SRs, etc.). The labor movement supported coalition of all progressive political parties with the new Soviet revolutionary state in which the Bolshevik Party Central Committee [F/] would participate but not dominate
*--Organized wage-labor opposed the Bolshevik idea of single-party rule. In view of this, was the so called "dictatorship of the proletariat" inevitable? Was Stalinism?

<>1917oc30:Bolsheviks announced new social insurance policy [ID]

<>1917oc30:1917no01; Aleksandr Kerenskii military move against Bolsheviks failed

<>1917no02:Soviet Decree on the right of the peoples of Russia to national self-determination (signed:  Joseph Stalin & Vladimir Lenin) [McC2:191-3 | CCC2,2:1119-20 | DRR:159-61]
*--The Georgian-born, non-Russian Stalin (before he took this revolutionary name, implying "man of steel", his family name was Djugashvili) suited the needs of Lenin as he sought a policy on how to treat the scores of non-Russian nationalities in the disintegrated Russian Empire. Stalin was a secondary figure in the now victorious Bolshevik Party, but Lenin valued his loyalty
*--Within days of the October Revolution, the emerging Soviet political system had to address traditional problems of law and order and create institutions appropriate to that task [McC2:176-84]

<>1917no02:Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) Central Committee rejected coalition government

<>1917no04:Soviet of People's Commissars [Sovnarkom] ultimatum to Rada [Chamberlin,1:486-8]

<>1917no07:Ukraine Rada,3rd declaration: proclamation of Ukraine as autonomous republic [Hunczak | Chamberlin,1:479-82]

<>1917no08:Russian Orthodox Church Patriarchate restored with appointment of Tikhon. At the same time the nearly 200-year old bureaucratic office, the Holy Synod, was abolished
*1917:1918; Liudmila Gerasimova urged Orthodox Church Council to recognize the role of women in church administration and restore the office of Deaconess [DRW:283-6]

<>1917no08:Trotsky reported on the international situation [RFP3:96-9]

<>1917no09:(NS no22) Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky published tsarist secret treaties, to great embarrassment of other European leaders [RFP3:99-101]
\\
Mayer:18

<>1917no12:Constituent Assembly election. Bolsheviks were reluctant to disallow this election, a dream of generations of political opposition in Russia. They did limit campaigning and marginalized non-revolutionary political parties. They saw to the arrest of certain Kadet leaders, e.g., Fedor Kokoshkin (who was later murdered in a detention hospital, terminating a remarkable 12-year political career)
*--Bolsheviks did well in some cities, but SRs emerged from this hedged election as the numerically dominant political party in Russia

<>1917no14:Soviet Decree "On Workers' Control" (Vladimir Lenin & Shliapnikov) which institutionalized a revolutionary managerial role for laborers in all vital realms of industry [Chamberlin,1:482-4 | DRR:161-3 | McC2:233-5 | DPH:379-80 | SGv:405-]
*--Related Decree [Reed appendix to ch11,##1-3=TXT]
*--This brief period of  wage-labor management in revolutionary Soviet industrial plants pointed in a different direction than the emerging contemporary "managerial revolution" in the European and global economy. But for how long......?
\\
*--This moment encourages many to argue that Stalinism was not an inevitable outcome of the Soviet Revolution

<>1917no18:The Left-SRs joined Lenin and SDs(b) on the governing Soviet of People's Commissars [Sovnarkom]
*--Thus, a semblance of coalition government was created

<>1917no19:1917no28; Ten-day conference of new party, Left-SRs

<>1917no22:provisional armistice on the eastern front of WW1, de02:Armistice confirmed

<>1917no28:Soviet decree ordered arrest of Constitutional Democrats [Partiia narodnoi svobody; Kadets]

<>1917de:German prison in Breslau described by leading radical Social Democrat Rosa Luxemburg who was jailed there because of her pacifism [Eye:483-4]
*--Luxemburg pondered the Europe-wide meaning of the Soviet Revolution. In the last months of her life, she worked on a study of "The Russian Revolution" [not published in her life, but later translated and published in reverse chronological order with her 1904 essay "Leninism or Marxism?", edited by Bertram Wolfe, Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism?]

<>1917de01:Novaia zhizn' [The New Life], a journal founded by Maxim Gorky, carried article by ex-Bolshevik V.A. Rudnev, criticizing Lenin and single-party rule

<>1917de01:Moscow decree on organization of Supreme Soviet of National Economy [McC2:230-2 | MDF:119]

<>1917de06:[de19 NS]; Soviet announcement of Brest-Litovsk armistice or cease-fire with Germany on the eastern front of WW1. The Soviets simultaneously appealed to the toiling, oppressed, and exhausted peoples of Europe against WW1 and the leaders who had gotten them into that war. Traditional European diplomatic community was shocked to see how the Soviet union took open steps to overthrow the government it sought to join in diplomatic talks [RFP3:101-4 | Senn,2:]

<>1917de07:Soviet Decree on revolutionary state police, the "Cheka" [an acronym based on Russian initials "CH" and "K" which stood for "Extraordinary Commission"] [DRR:174-5 | McC2:181 | B&F | MDF:119 | SGv:237]
*--Felix Dzerzhinskii, a twenty-year veteran member of SDs, became director of the first Soviet-era political police force [W]
*--Another hint at Stalinism before Stalin came to power

<>1917de07:Sovnarkom allocated 2M rubles for the needs of the revolutionary international movement [RFP3:104] Bolsheviks felt world revolution was essential to their success

<>1917de14:Decree on Nationalization of Banks [Chamberlin,1:489 | McC2:232 | CCC2,2:1120-1 | MDF:119]

<>1917de16:Soviet decree on organization of Red Army [McC2:140-1 | Chamberlin,1:489-90 | MDF:119]
*--Formation of revolutionary military force in the form of a standing army, rather than an armed citizenry, seemed to contradict Lenin's oft-repeated assurance that his revolutionary Russia would tolerate no standing army and thus would guarantee the Soviet revolution from slipping back into the pre-revolutionary Russian managerial "semi-Asiatic mode of production"
*--This strategic shift, from ideological projection to actual policy, contributed to (1) rise of "military-industrial" structures and practices in USSR (managerial economic and social mobilization to meet a perceived military crisis), and thus (2) rise of Stalinism
\\
*--Merkle describes managerial concepts behind new War Minister Trotsky's creation of the Red Army [TXT]

<>1917de20:Decree on civil marriage & Finnish independence

<>1917de22:Russian-Polish border town Brest-Litovsk, site of German-Russian peace talks. Revolutionary Russia’s foreign minister Joffe offered six points re. peace [Mayer:296-304 (-312)]

  1. No forcible annexation of territories seized in the war
  2. Restore national independence where it was terminated during war
  3. National groups independent before the war should be allowed by referendum to decide question of independence
  4. Multi-cultural regions should be administered so as to allow all possible cultural independence and self-regulation
  5. No indemnities. Personal losses should be compensated out of international fund
  6. Colonial question should be decided according to points 1-4
*--German Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann and Austrian Foreign Minister Count Ottokar Czernin, in all their old-world splendor, were met by leather-coated representatives of revolutionary Soviet power who at first brushed off the Central Power dignitaries and distributed incendiary pamphlets to German troops. The eastern front looked like it was shifting from international war to revolutionary war
\\
*--Mayer:302 compares Joffe's six points with Lenin's views on Imperialism [ID]
*--Mayer:303-4 highlights Rbt Lansing's fear of revolutionary potential as WW1 ended

<>1917de26:Decree of Sovet narodnykh deputatov [Sovnarkom; Council of People’s Deputies] re. Rights & Duties of Soviet [MDF:119]

<>1917de29:Workers union leader Lozovskii dismissed from Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks)

<>1918:1919; Russian writer Vasilii Rozanov, The Apocalypse of Our Times [cf. Edie,2:286-304]

<>1918:Russian poet Aleksandr Blok, "The Intelligentsia & the Revolution" [Raeff3:364-71]
*--Blok's most brilliant twenty years were at a close

<>1918:Russian feminist revolutionary Aleksandra Kollontai, "The Family & the Communist State"
*1921:"The Fight Against Prostitution"
*1923:"Make Way for the Winged Eros" [Wm. Rosenberg,Bolshevik:79-88, 96-106, & 179-84]

<>1918:German sociologist Max Weber delivered a lecture which treated with a special flare the conflict between scholarly detachment and engagement with everyday life, "Politics as a Vocation" [CCS:361-90 | CCS,1:651-82]

<>1918ja04:USA President Woodrow Wilson’s Peace Inquiry Bureau position paper "The War Aims and Peace Terms it Suggests" [Mayer:339-44]. GO ja05:British Prime Minister delivered his views on war aims

<>1918ja04:Ukraine invaded by military force loyal to Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks)

<>1918ja05:London Trades Union Congress heard address by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, in which he offered comprehensive and progressive statement of British war aims. In part he was reacting to the widely influential Trotsky invitation to all Allies to agree on progressive war aims and Joffe's "Six Points", issued from Brest-Litovsk where Soviet/German negotiations were under way, negotiations that just might bring WW1 to an end. Not all allies objected to that possibility, but they were much alarmed at the thought that negotiations at Brest-Litovsk might bring an end to the war on the eastern front, freeing the Central Powers to concentrate on the western front
*--Perhaps hoping to encourage quick and favorable termination of the war on the western front, Lloyd George strongly hinted that German gains in the east might be kept as the war ended. But he did also express the emerging consensus among those who would practice the "New Diplomacy" = "government with the consent of the governed must be the basis of any territorial settlement in the war"
\\
*--Mayer:323-8

<>1918ja05:ja06; Constituent Assembly met for one long day. Declared Russia a republic
*--Elected President Viktor Chernov (SRs) described how Bolshevik troops suppressed the Constituent Assembly [Moh]
*--Swedish social-democrat Carl Lindhagen described what he saw [McC2:280-2]
*--Bolshevik Party declaration [Chamberlin,1:491-3] and a decree suppression the Constituent Assembly [Chamberlin,1:493-5 | DRR:180-2 | McC2:184-5 | SGv:30 | DPH:380-4]
*--The closure of the Constituent Assembly by Red Army units under Bolshevik command meant the end of the enduring dream of the Russian opposition that a Constituent Assembly might settle Russia's future
*--Crushing elected revolutionary legislature signaled Bolshevik confidence in their grasp of the reigns of state power, but it also contributed to rise of Stalinism

<>1918ja06:All-Russian Congress of workers unions opened

<>1918ja07:Lenin's 21 theses on the need for immediate peace with Central Powers included the following = "The peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk have made it completely clear ... that in the German government (which completely directs the other governments of the Quadruple Alliance) the military party has taken over, and it has essentially presented Russia with an ultimatum. [...] The ultimatum is such: either more war or an annexationist peace, i.e., a peace on the condition that we yield all land occupied by us, the Germans keep all land occupied by them and impose upon us an indemnity (externally disguised as payment for the maintenance of prisoners) in the neighborhood of three billion rubles, to be paid over several years."
*--Lenin argued that the Soviets had to take this bitter pill. Further war would be even more disastrous [RFP3:104-111 | Senn,2:38] The eastern front was winding down

<>1918ja08:USA Congress. Woodrow Wilson address outlined "Fourteen Points" [TXT] [Mayer:352 mid-367 | BNE:215-19] The first four paragraphs show clear impact of Soviet negotiations to end the war, and feed directly into a bold statement of US war aims [ID]
*--French Premier Georges Clemenceau was forced to budge from his significantly more conservative "Old Diplomacy", based on traditional European power-politics and imperial maneuver. As a central figure among the Allies, he set out to blunt the momentum toward radically new ways of terminating wars which were spilling forth from revolutionary Russia and USA. Clemenceau became the main champion of the "parties of order"
*--Events at Brest-Litovsk hastened Allied deliberation on war aims, a deliberation that had not gotten seriously under way after more than three years of war
\\
*--Mayer describes Allied views on war aims as of this time

<>1918ja09:Ukraine Rada 4th declaration, "independence, subject to no one," a free, sovereign national state of the People of the Ukraine" [Hunczak]

<>1918ja16:Kiev taken by Bolshevik military units [McC2:141-2] The seizure of Kiev marked the earliest beginnings of horrendous Revolutionary Civil War and European Allied intervention which continued for nearly three years. Veterans of the previous years of Russian political struggle against tsarist absolutism, like the leader of the KDs, Miliukov (on the national scene since 1904), and the prominent Octobrist, Rodzianko, at the end of his intense six years near the center of national politics, now drifted away from the capitals where Soviet power was having greatest success and found themselves associated with armed forces that were anti-Bolshevik but not necessarily liberal or democratic. With defeat of the anti-Bolshevik cause, Miliukov and other veterans of early 20th-century efforts at liberal revolution in Russia, fled into exile. Thus Miliukov ended his fifteen years near the center of Russian political life. His failure seemed to represent the failure of liberalism in Russia, until it was revived again after seventy years of Soviet rule in Russia
*--In Rostov na Donu a Volunteer Army formed up against the Soviet Revolution. Military leaders there were not often supporters of Duma or Constituent Assembly ideals [ID] of representative government. Often they had been associated with the Kornilov affair. With others of these officers, Kornilov himself escaped to join the struggle against Soviet power
*1918mr31:Kornilov was killed in battle
*--Never have the complexities of the relationship between "internal war" [i.e., revolution] and "external war" [i.e., old fashioned armed conflict between nation states] been greater than in the disintegrated territories of the old Russian empire over these years of revolutionary civil war [McC2:147-64] and Allied intervention

<>1918ja19:Tikhon,Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, pastoral letter condemned Bolsheviks [Chamberlin,1:495-7 | McC2:193-5 | Curtis, Russian Revolution:177-9]

<>1918ja23:Decree on relationship of Russian Orthodox Church to the new revolutionary state [Chamberlin,1:497-8]

<>1918ja24:Ukraine Rada signed WW1 treaty w/Germany

<>1918ja26:Ukraine Rada toppled by military loyal to Bolshevik Party. Revolutionary civil war loomed

<>1918ja27:Soviet decree on socialization of agricultural land [McC2:248-51] CF=1918fe19

<>1918ja28:Moscow resolution of the Congress of Soviets #3 established Soviet style federal government [B&F:396-7 | DPH:427-9]

<>1918ja28:Moscow decree annulling state debts [Chamberlin,1:498-9 | McC2:235]

<>1918fe01:fe13; There was no 1918:fe01:fe13 in Russian history. Thirteen days were skipped in Russian history as the day after ja31 was by decree fe14. All will be pleased to be reminded that fe14=Valentine’s Day and did not have to be missed. Chronologically this "great leap forward" happened because Soviet authorities replaced the historical Russian Julian calendar (Old Style or OS) with the then-standard European Gregorian calendar (New Style or NS) [McC2:255-7]
*--SAC strives to follow this convention= Dates up to 1700 are NS conversions of an even more ancient Orthodox calendar which was in use up to that time. Then=
*1700:Tsar Peter replaced the Orthodox calendar with the Julian calendar (OS), widely used in Europe but just then on its way out. In this early modern period, Europe was shifting to the Gregorian (NS) calendar. Since Roman days, OS had been falling behind the planetary timing of seasons and years. NS adjusted for that and structured itself so as not to fall behind so obviously as OS. At the moment Peter I adopted OS in Russia, NS was eleven days ahead. SAC tries to adhere to that OS calendar for Russian events, despite the fact that it continued to fall further behind. As each century turned, on the double zero year (e.g., 1800 and 1900), OS fell one day behind NS. OS was behind NS eleven days in the 1700s, twelve in the 1800s, thirteen in the 1900s
*--Why did OS fall behind NS? The NS calendar does not observe leap year on the regular four-year cycle in those years that end in two zeros, but OS does. Thus, from 1700 to 1801 Russia celebrated Christmas on ja05:NS and New Year on ja11:NS. The next century, it was ja06 and ja12, respectively. At the dawn of the 20th century, it was ja07 and ja13
*1918fe14:Russian calendar "backwardness" came to an end for all secular purposes, but the Orthodox Church continues to this day to use OS
*--Millennia (years that end in three zeros) are in this respect different from century years in NS. Perhaps you noticed that in the 2000 our NS calendar did observe leap year on the regular four-year cycle. Therefore, OS does not fall behind NS one more day in a millennial century. In other words, in both the 20th and the 21st centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on ja07 and New Year on ja13
*--For those who like obscure miniature histories, here are yet a few more entries toward a brief chronology of the European calendar =
*046BC: Julius Caesar decreed Julian Calendar
*1582oc05:1582oc14; Vatican City Rome skipped over these ten days in order to adjust for the accumulated inaccuracies in the Julian Calendar
*1582oc15:Vatican City, Rome | Pope Gregory XIII, guided by panel of astronomers, then introduced a more accurate calendar, eventually named the Gregorian Calendar. This calendar introduced a more sophisticated system of “leap year”. Every four years February would have a 29th day, as before, but now on century years (years ending in “00”) there would be no leap year. Nor would there be a leap year in years divisible by 400. The calendar and the earthly rotation around the sun would now be kept in better synchronization
*1752se:England, Ireland the New World colonies (future USA) adopted the Gregorian Calendar and had to cut 11 days out of their September

<>1918fe18:German-Russian hostilities resumed after Germany denounced Soviet diplomatic stalling and abandoned negotiations at Brest-Litovsk

<>1918fe19:Lenin pleaded for acceptance of peace, but Party rejected his plea
*--Two more weeks of German/Austrian advance finally convinced everyone that peace was necessary [McC2:142-4] GO mr03

<>1918fe19:Russian Federated Soviet Republic passed "Fundamental Law of Agricultural Land Socialization" [CCC2,2:1121-2] CF=1918ja27

<>1918fe22:Social Democratic Party (bolsheviks) [SD(b)] accepted the offer by western-front allies to aid them on the eastern front. All this presumed that the Soviets were going to continue the war effort against Central Powers. However =

<>1918mr03:German-Russian Brest-Litovsk treaty ended World War One on eastern front [W]. After three years and seven months of world war, the eastern front was quiet. Soviet negotiators had stalled for three months, but now were forced to accept a damaging peace
*--Bolshevik Party secret resolution and expression of opposition [Chamberlin,1:499-502]
*--Left-SRs were much opposed to the treaty
*--German troops occupied large parts of the Baltic provinces and Polish-speaking imperial territory. Austria occupied a large swath of Ukraine
*1918mr:1918my; imperial Russian territories of Belorussia [Belarus], Georgia [Gruziia], Armenia, Azerbaijan declared independence from Russia. International war was becoming revolutionary civil war
*--When the WW1 ended on the western front, Russia disavowed its own treaty of peace with Germany

<>1918mr05:England military landing at Murmansk on White Sea. Allied intervention intensified

<>1918mr06:mr07; Moscow | Communist Party Congress #7, re. peasant affairs and agricultural land policy [Chamberlin,2:478-81]
*--Bolshevik Party [SD(b)] renamed Communist Party

<>1918mr15:Left-SRs withdrew from the institutions of People's Commissars, though they held onto local positions for the time being
*--In these days, Trotsky became Commissar for War and President of the Supreme War Council. He urged the introduction of "bourgeois" methods, anything that could contribute to the practical possibility of national survival
\\
*--Merkle describes these days [TXT]

<>1918mr16:Kiev | German occupation
*--Within a few weeks, Ukraine Rada toppled by German military; Pavlo Skoropadski

<>1918mr21:Germany launched last WW1 offensive on western front

<>1918ap05:Siberia, Vladivostok | Japan military landing complicated the question of revolutionary civil war as outside intervention entered into the equation of domestic struggle

<>1918ap10:Russian consumers' co-operatives [McC2:239-41]

<>1918ap22:Soviet Decree on compulsory military training [McC2:144-7 | Chamberlin,1:502-4] The newly renamed Communist Party was preparing itself for armed struggle, whether with international (inter-state war) or domestic foes (civil war)
*1918ap22:Soviet Decree on Nationalization of foreign commerce [Chamberlin,1:504-6] These three decrees were followed in two months by a second set of decrees [ID] aimed to support military mobilization
*1918ap29:Trade Unionists criticized Soviet government, expressing wage-labor discontent [McC2:236-7]

<>1918my09:Soviet Congress of the Supreme Council of the Public Economy issued a Decree on food [Chamberlin,1:509-11 | Senn,2:] and a Decree on agricultural land which emphasized the need for war against kulaks [term employed to label rich peasants, or any village folk who opposed Soviet policies]
*--Seven months of search for a proper policy on agricultural land [LOOP]
\\
*--Merkle analyzes the Congress and presents in Lenin's own words the guiding managerial ideas and the growing conflict of the struggling Party with Soviet wage-laborers and their unions [TXT]

<>1918my:"Natsional'nyi tsentr" [National Center] organized against Soviet government
*--Old Zemstvo constitutionalist Dmitrii Shipov became first president

<>1918my16:1918my19; Saratov | Red Army mutinied, adding an urgent note of institutional instability as revolutionary civil war loomed

<>1918my16:USA "Espionage Act" amended [W]

<>1918my23:Siberia, Cheliabinsk | Soviet authorities ordered that the mutinous Czech and Slovak legions [ID] be disarmed and broken up. These legions arose earlier out of the Czech and Slovak movement for independence from Austrian and Hungarian domination. The movement was inspired by the growing hope that Allied victory in WW1 could create a modern bi-national Slavic nation-state "Czecho-Slovakia". The legions joined Russian armies in the war against the Central Powers on the Eastern Front. After the Soviet Revolution and withdrawal from WW1, the legions sought to fight on, perhaps to join the Allied military intervention against Soviet power. Now they were to be disarmed and shipped by Trans-Siberian Rail to Vladivostok and by sea to the Western Front

<>1918my30:Siberia, Tomsk | Western Siberian Commissariat established to secure Soviet power there

<>1918je09:Decree on Red Army [Chamberlin,2:465] A second round of mobilization decrees now followed the first [ID]. Two more decrees followed quickly as Soviets geared up for military struggle against anti-revolutionary forces =

<>1918je11:Decree on Committees of Poor Peasants (Kombedy) [Chamberlin,2:465-8 | McC2:247-51 | SGv:312-2]
These squads combed the countryside in search of grain to be confiscated and used in the most vital governmental, military and industrial centers

<>1918je28:Decree on Nationalization of manufacturing, industry, transportation, etc [Chamberlin,2:468-70 | CCC2,2:1122-4 | MDF:119-20 | SGv:34-6]
*--State centralization of national economic life occurred in connection with revolutionary civil war military mobilization, but in the long run it contributed to rise of Stalinism

<>1918jy01:Official Communist Party labor union condemned industrial worker strikes. Independence of wage-labor was coming to an end
*--A frosty hint of future "Stalinism"

<>1918jy02:European Allies decided on military intervention in the Russian Revolution
*--NB! earlier landings on territories of old Russian empire in Murmansk in the White Sea region [ID] and Vladivostok in the region of the Sea of Japan [ID]

<>1918jy06:USA. Woodrow Wilson decided to send troops to Russia. Allied military intervention in Russia aimed to keep eastern front open and/or to crush Bolshevik Revolution
*--Michael Kettle, Russia and the Allies, 1917-1920, vol. 2: "The Road to Intervention: March-November 1918" (lengthy paraphrases of correspondence from ENG FO archives, etc.)
*--Soviet version [ORW:186-9]
*--Winston Churchill’s version [RFP2,1:93-111]
*--American radical opinion felt the attack on Russia was an attack on progressive political movements everywhere. The beginnings of the "Cold War" might be located right here: United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings… (WDC:1919)
\\
*--Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia: The Formative Years (NYC:1960)
*--Peter G. Filene, Americans and the Soviet Experiment: 1917-1933 (1967)
*--Peter G. Filene, ed., American Views of Soviet Russia, 1917-1965 (Homewood IL: 1968)
*--Stephen P. Gibert, Soviet Image of America (1977)
*--Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, 1928-1978 (1981)
*--Christopher Lasch, American Liberals and the Russian Revolution (NYC:1962)
*--Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (1955)
*--Marvin M. Berman, The Treatment of the Soviet Union and Communism in Selected World History Textbooks, 1920-1970

<>1918jy06:Murmansk | Invading English forces reached agreement with local Soviet

<>1918jy06:1918jy08; Moscow | Left-SRs rebelled against Communist Party rule
*--German Ambassador Mirbach assassinated; disorders followed
*--Uprising exposed eight-month-long SD(b)/Left-SRs coalition as false
*--Independent social democracy crushed in fledgling Soviet Union

<>1918jy06:1918jy23; Yaroslavl [map] gripped in public disorder
*--Boris Savinkov headed up an anti-Bolshevik party, 'Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom" [Soiuz zashchity rodiny i svobody] and played an important role in organizing summer insurgencies in Murmansk and Yaroslavl. The revolutionary civil war already showed a great multiplicity of "fronts", badly organized against the increasingly mobilized new Soviet state

<>1918jy10:Soviet Conference5 expelled Left-SRs and declared that the new revolutionary state was named the "Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic" (RSFSR). A new constitution was adopted [SGv:37-50 | DPH:429-31]
*--RSFSR was the core of the larger federated union that emerged over the next 2 1/2 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

<>1918jy16:Russian ex-tsar Nicholas II and his family gunned down in Ekaterinburg captivity [McC2:189]
*--Pavel Medvedev described event [Eye:485-7]

<>1918jy17:USA President Wilson’s instructions to his commander in Siberia, General William Graves [RFP2,2:3-6]
*--Graves, America’s Siberian Adventure: 1918-1920 (1931, reprint, 1941)

<>1918jy28:USA-Russia diplomatic break when Ambassador David Francis sailed away from a port on the White Sea near Arkhangel’sk. No American ambassador in USSR for 15 years
*--Francis, David Rowland. Dollars and Diplomacy: Ambassador David Rowland Francis and the Fall of Tsarism, 1916-1917
*----------. Russia From the American Embassy
\\
*--Harper Barnes, Standing on a Volcano: The Life and Times of David R. Francis (2001)

<>1918au02:1919je07; Arkhangel'sk [map] English proclamations to Russians aimed to enlist domestic forces in the cause of Allied intervention [VRX:300-18]
*1918au02:Arkhangel’sk | Anti-Soviet Chaikovskii government established. England definitely saw a role for itself in the revolutionary civil war

<>1918au02:Vladivostok [map] Japanese forces moved along Trans-Siberian railroad into Siberia

<>1918au03:Vladivostok | English forces landed at Vladivostok. USA also involved in Siberian intervention

<>1918au07:Kazan and its gold reserves taken by people's military

<>1918au15:USA formally severed diplomatic relations with revolutionary Russia

<>1918se04:Arkhangel'sk | USA landed military force with other interventionist ally England
*1918se05:"Red terror" on the rise [McC2:186-9]

<>1918se23:Ufa, a city at the southern tip of the Ural Mts. [map], ruled by "White" government
*--Revolutionary civil war approached its year of greatest crisis =

<>1918oc:Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Tikhon placed under house arrest
*--The previous critical sixty years of reform had not prepared the Russian Church to survive the revolutionary era without devastating loss of official stature in the emerging Soviet Union

<>1918oc03:Germany, in the waning weeks of WW1, moved toward creation of liberal republic when Prince Max of Baden was appointed German chancellor

<>1918oc18:Russian industrial worker control in factories abolished, ending wage-labor self-management [SGv:406-7]
*--More than a hint of coming Stalinism in the revolutionary civil war policies of the new Soviet state

<>1918oc26:German chief of staff Erich Ludendorff dismissed

<>1918oc30:Czechoslovak Republic declared its existence, a new bi-national Slavic nation-state. Within a few weeks, T.G. Masaryk was elected first president

<>1918oc31:Soviet Social Security plan enacted [Rimlinger one-paragraph ID]

<>1918no06:Polish Republic was declared under Pilsudski who set about instantly to wage war in order to restore pre-partition borders [ID]. He sent troops to the east against the fragmented old Russian Empire, locked now in revolutionary civil war

<>1918no07:English-French joint declaration about national liberation in old "Near Eastern" territories of the Ottoman Turkish Empire [BNE:298-9] The collapse of Turkey provided an opportunity for England and France

<>1918no09:Germany, Berlin | Rebellion brought down decrepit Hohenzollern imperial monarchy and incipient liberal regime. Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert to Chancellorship. Speaking from the balcony of the Reichstag, Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed Germany a republic
*--On this day in Munich, a Bavarian republic proclaimed
*--Powerful pre-war social democracy seemed to be on the rise again as the catastrophic war wound down, but now Russian Revolution inspired even more radical programs
\\
*--Mayer [TXT]

<>1918no11:Germany signed Armistice with Allies, World War One was now over on the western front, bringing a final end to a catastrophic epoch of European, imperialist self-destruction that had started six years earlier
*--"Internationally the most striking changes in the relationship of forces were the defeat of Germany as a dissatisfied power, the industrial-military rise of America and Japan, and the military eclipse of Russia." [Mayer:7] [NB! "industrial-military"]
*--Russia and Germany were devastated and marginalized. No European was yet ready to show respect for Japan. USA seemed at this point uniquely in a position to play a positive role in the reconstruction of war ravaged Europe
*--PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE followed, and it imposed the Versailles Treaty on Germany

<>1918no12:Austrian Habsburg Emperor Charles I abdicated. Then Austria proclaimed itself united with Germany. On that same day, however, a German revolutionary government was proclaimed [DPH:405] Union of Germany and Austria was not realized at this time. Twenty-years later it was realized, however under very different circumstances
*1918:1933mr07; Austrian Social Democrats came to power for fifteen years. Noteworthy social welfare reforms were introduced under predominantly Social Democratic authority
*--English writer John Lehmann described Public Housing in Vienna [P20:184]
*1918:1919; Soviet leader Aleksandra Kollontai wrote articles on women's welfare, with notable reference to revolutionary accomplishments for women in Russia since the 1905 Revolution [StH:157-68]

<>1918no13:Moscow | Congress of Soviets #6 repudiated Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, now that armistice signed on western front

<>1918no18:Siberia, Omsk | Coup d’etat brought Admiral Kolchak to power far from the open seas. Kolchak's Siberia soon became an important anti-Soviet rallying point in the revolutionary civil war

<>1918no26:Odessa occupied by French interventionist force

<>1918de:Ukraine Directory (x-Rada) cooperated with military to overthrow pro-German leader Skoropadski

<>1918de02:Committees of Poor Peasants (Kombedy) liquidated, bringing an end to one of the most unpopular Soviet policies in the revolutionary civil war period

<>1918de14:English general elections brought strong-man David Lloyd George, war-time Minister of Defense and Prime Minister, and his Coalition to center
*--Labour Party, moved into oppositional stance under the influence of war-time conditions and the Soviet Revolution. This large and active political party issued a platform, "Labour and the New Social Order" [BPE:503-21] English wage-labor movement adopted radical and social democratic positions in the post-WW1 years

<>1918de18:Batumi on the far eastern shore of the Black Sea [map] the site of English interventionist military landing, further complicating the lines of battle forming in the revolutionary civil war

<>1918de20:Germany | Berlin conference of workers and soldiers deputies demanded nationalization of those industries within which soviets had been created by wage-laborers (especially war veterans -- soldiers mainly being workers temporarily in uniform). These soviets imitated the Russian revolutionary model [ID].

<>1919:Germany, Weimar | Walter Gropius created school of applied art and architecture called "Bauhaus" [CWC:398-413]

<>1919:German (Czech-born) Social Democrat Karl Kautsky criticized Bolshevik politics in Terrorism and Communism in which he sought to distinguish his social democracy from Soviet-style socialism [CCS:921-44 | CCS,2:533-56]
*--Trotsky was quick to respond [excerpts from the full polemic = PWT2:300-4]

<>1919:German (Czech-born) political theorist Joseph Schumpeter published Soziologie des Imperialismus [CCC3,2:1089-1109]

<>1919:Moscow Communist Party renounced all unequal tsarist treaties & Russian imperialism in general

<>1919wi:Anti-Soviet revolutionary civil war political leader Dmitrii Shipov arrested by Cheka
*1920:Shipov's death brought an end to a remarkable 20-year political career

<>1919ja05:ja11; German Spartacists Party [Spartakusbund], a radical spin-off from the main body of German Social Democrats, revolted in Berlin
*--Klara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Franz Mehring, Spartacist Manifesto [Gruber,1:104-14 | BPE:521-4]
*1919ja15:Luxemburg and Liebknecht were arrested and murdered by Free Corps police on their way to jail

<>1919ja10:fe04; German city Bremen declared self a Soviet Republic and survived 4 weeks

<>1919ja12:Soviet Republic Foreign Affairs Commissar Chicherin memo to USA State Department about the intervention & need for peace talks [RFP2,2:27]

<>1919ja18:1920au10; France |  Paris Peace Conference [W] settled five major treaties on the defeated Central Powers [ID] over an 18-month period. None of the Central Powers were invited to the conferences until their settlement was determined by "victorious" Allies. Ex-ally Russia, now a revolutionary Soviet state, did not participate. The angry, insecure, disharmonious and (except the USA) damaged Allies set out to remake Europe on their own
*--Compare this with the Congress of Vienna
*--Compare and contrast also parallel visions of a better Europe, first at the Congress of Vienna [ID] and then now =
*--Paris Peace Conference resulted in five major treaties, each named after a Paris "suburb" =
*1919je28:Treaty of Versailles was settled on Germany, the first of the major treaties
*1919se10:Treaty of Saint-Germain was settled on Austria, setting free Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary as independent nation-states
*1919no27:Treaty of Neuilly [W] was settled on the least of the Central Powers, Bulgaria, which was forced to relinquish its Aegean Sea territories, to pay excessive reparations to the victorious Allies, and to accept the independence of Yugoslavia
*1920je04:Treaty of Trianon [W] was settled on Hungary, stripping it of huge territories in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania
*1920au10:Treaty of Sèvres [W] was settled on what remained of the old Ottoman Turkish Empire (where the Covenant of the League of Nations, ARTICLE 22 on "Mandatories" [ID], was applied with especial vigor =

  • The Kingdom of the Hijaz [Hedjaz, Hejaz, later Saudi Arabia] became an independent entity (dominated by England)
  • France assumed Mandate authority in Syria
  • Greece was assigned administrative control of Smyrna for five years, then a plebiscite was to be held; the Greeks also gained Thrace and various Turkish islands
  • Britain controlled Palestine and Mesopotamia as mandates
  • Italy gained Rhodes and the Dodecanese
  • Armenia was granted its independence
  • The Straits (Dardanelles and Bosporus, linking the Black and Aegean seas) were internationalized and demilitarized
*1919ja25:1942; The Versailles Treaty contained the Covenant of the League of Nations [TXT] [Excerpts = BNE:257-60 | CCC2,2:1219-31 | DPH:451-61]. The League established Geneva as its institutional headquarters. The idea for a League was not solely that of President Wilson. General Jan Smuts [ID], Léon Bourgeois [ID], and Lord Robert Cecil [ID] also promoted creation of the League
*--Purpose = to maintain peace, arbitrate international disputes, and promote international cooperation; mainly to restrain the aggression of hitherto unrestrained sovereign national-states. Noteworthy also was the creation of a League institution devoted to the problems of international wage-labor (#4 below). Possibly the most delicate issue of all was nation-state competition in the imperialized world
*--Structure =
(1) General Assembly where all members sent representatives
(2) Council, made up of representatives of the "Great Powers" (England, France, Italy, Japan; later, also Germany and USSR) and other rotating members, and guided by unanimous decisions
*--Associated international bodies =
(3) World Court [this replaced the 1907 Hague Conventions [ID] and became the generic term for two sequential judicial bodies dedicated to problems of international law =
*1921:1945; Court of International Justice in Den Haag which rendered judgments on international disputes which were voluntarily submitted to it. USA did not join, but always had a judge on the court, and
*1945:+; International Court of Justice where 15 judges mediate between nation-states and gives advisory opinions to UNO General Assembly when requested
(4) 1919:+; International Labor Organization [ILO] continues under UNO into the 21st century, wielding autonomous authority to standardize and improve working conditions of wage-laborers in member nation-states
*--The visionary League lost any chance it might have had to play a large balancing role in subsequent events when the USA refused to join, despite the fact that US President Wilson was the most prominent proponent of the idea. USA troops were welcome on the battlefield in 1917-1918, but USA President Wilson's peace-building efforts were not welcome in peace-making Paris in 1919. Wilson's diplomatic radicalism (as first clearly stated in his Fourteen Points) threatened imperialistic England and France as much as it did Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Turks
*--In any event, back home in the USA, Wilson was undermined by what conventional American historians like to call "isolationism", but which might best be called conservative or even home-grown imperialist objection to Wilson's progressive internationalism. The USA Senate refused to authorize USA membership. Massachusetts Senator Lodge led the assault. Lodge opposed progressive internationalism but found ways to support imperialist internationalism [ID]. These domestic opponents shared much with the European diplomats who humored but resisted Wilson. The Wilsonian vision was of a healthy USA active in a world wrecked by total war but still able to be made safe for democracy, national independence and self-determination, as well as economic recovery. Wilson's vision was ultimately as unacceptable to "Western" elites as was the vision of the Leninist Comintern. Yet the fate of post-WW1 Europe was being shaped, for better or worse and in unprecedented ways, by two peripheral European nations, USA and USSR =
*--For European diplomacy, what followed the Paris Peace Conference was a two decade era of contest between two faulty efforts at "world governance" = the COMINTERN vs. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. Thus ended in failure Wilson's powerful two-year presence on the world historical scene
*--Without the active and positive participation of the two great "peripheral" European peoples (USA and, until late in the life of the League, USSR) the League of Nations lasted officially 23 years, but after 18 years it was clear it had failed in its optimistic mission against nation-state militarism. The period of Comintern existence nearly perfectly corresponded to that of the League. The ineffectiveness of each in dealing with the actual global and diplomatic issues that arose over these two decades had to be acknowledged when each disbanded in the early months of WW2. [TXT of a general assessment of the League]
*--The League of Nations and the Comintern were dismantled in order to make way for actual solutions of world problems
*--At the very outset, the diplomatic structures put in place for the peace to follow WW1 were eaten away by the progressive economic collapse of the world capitalist economy. This was the beginning of the global "Great Depression", of which the US experience was slow in coming but was a definite part of the same failed international policies. Starting in Central Europe, by 1929 the collapse washed over USA isolationism across the Atlantic

<>1919ja21:Ireland, Dublin | Sinn Fein Congress adopted declaration of independence from England
*1919:1921; Irish war of independence. The military wing of the Sinn Fein political party, the Irish Republican Army [IRA],  was led by Michael Collins. Conclusion of war for independence from England did not bring peace to the Irish

<>1919ja23:German elections brought socialists to power

<>1919fe:Ukraine Directory fell to Red Army as the revolutionary civil war raged on

<>1919fe:Japan suggested racial equality clause in the charter of the League of Nations, supported by China, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Italy, and Poland. Austria was a bitter opponent of the racial equality clause, supported by Canada & USA. England held back. Defeat left "Japan with a feeling of resentment that was never entirely assuaged" [Beasley,MHJ:208]

<>1919fe:USA, Seattle General Strike, growing labor militancy led to first ever "general" strike in USA, in which workers throughout a major city simply ceased to "go to work"


The City of Seattle formed machine-gun units to combat strikers [Seattle Times]

*--Labor unrest in Washington State moved Anna Louise Strong toward radical wage-labor issues. She objected particularly to the direct involvement of hired private police in a deadly skirmish with workers in Everett WA ("The Everett Massacre")
*--She also devoted herself to women's causes and to the anti-war movement after USA entered WW1
*--Daughter of a prominent Seattle clergyman and herself a PhD holder with a dissertation on the psychology of prayer, Strong was now a member of the coordinating strike committee. She wrote a famous op/ed piece on the eve of the strike [W]. She helped compose the strikers' own "history" of the event [W]. She was at the beginning of an extraordinary and long career of political activism that brought her into close association with the Russian Revolution and the building of the USSR, and, after 1958, with the People's Republic of China. She died in Beijing in 1970 at age 84s
\\
*--Excellent historical website on the Seattle strike [W] sponsored by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington
*--Judith Nies, Nine Women: Portraits from the American Radical Tradition (2002; expanded 1977 ed.), a good chapter on Strong

<>1919fe11:German republic elected Friedrich Ebert president. Soon, the president asked Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann to form a cabinet
*--The German "Weimar Republic" seemed in a race against the triumphalist allies gathered at the Versailles peace deliberations. Who would come up with a structure for the new Germany first? Scheidemann later wrote memoirs describing the debates in the Reichstag [PWT2:281-3]
*--A constitutional convention began its five month work to produce the 1919jy31:Weimar Constitution

<>1919fe13(NS):English Foreign Office [FO] interviews with Russian political refugees painted a grim picture. An interventionist mood grew in FO circles [BNE:233-9]

<>1919fe21:Germany, Munich | Bavarian premier Kurt Eisner assassinated

<>1919fe23:Italian political activist, ex-socialist syndicalist Benito Mussolini founded Fasci del Combattimento and drafted visionary program that was never carried out, whatever his later successes as founder of European Fascism [DPH:386-7]
*--GO mr04

<>1919mr04:1943my22; Moscow | Comintern [Communist International or Third International] lasted 24 years
*--Statutes & manifesto issued, including G/1920au06 for Twenty-one Conditions [RFP2,2:151-4 | ORW:183-4]
*--Served as USSR counterweight to Versailles allies (who excluded Soviet Russia from the deliberations) and their League of Nations (which also, for the longest time, excluded the USSR)
*--It also served as a new Soviet-dominated version of the First International and Second International
*--The Comintern soon found itself in a struggle not only against the power of bourgeois-liberal capitalism but also against the rise of European Fascism and against the resilient moderate social democratic tradition of Bernstein [ID]
*--Dmitrii Moor created a poster of Lenin as torch-bearing crusader for the world revolution [pix]
*--Another Moor poster called out for "Death to world imperialism" [pix]
*--Helmut Gruber, ed., International Communism in the era of Lenin: A Documentary History
*--GO mr16

<>1919mr13:Kolchak military campaign vs. Bolsheviks on the Siberian front of the revolutionary civil war

<>1919mr16:Austrian socialist Karl Renner was appointed chancellor
*--Moderate socialism was thus shown to have survived the debacle of war credits at the outbreak of WW1 and kept itself alive during the war and its painful conclusion. A foundation still existed for the growth of a viable European social democracy over the next months and years, but by WW2 it had suffered terrible defeat at the hands of enemies to the right and to the left

<>1919mr18:mr23; Communist Party Congress #8 met and created the Politbiuro [F/] ["Political Bureau", the highest level of institutional authority within the Communist Party] & Orgbiuro [Organizational Bureau—responsible for shaping and staffing all party and state institutions], and the Council of Labor & Defense (STO). Note combination of wage-laborers and soldiers. This might be seen as the end of the two-year "revolutionary phase" in the life of the organization known as Soviets of Workers and Peasants Deputies. The Party and its bureaus now firmly and exclusively in managerial control of these governmental/administrative institutions
*--Stalin took a position in the new Orgbiuro [Party Organizational Bureau]. This gave him significant authority over the emerging nomenklatura (posts over which the Party had appointment authority). From this position he could make and break party careers within the Party apparat [bureaucratic structure]. Institutional basis laid for rise of Stalinism

<>1919mr21:au01; Hungary. Bela Kun formed Soviet government which survived more than four months

<>1919mr26:Soviet Republic declaration addressed to China [RFP2,1:172-5]
*--China in three-way political struggle between Sun Yat-sen, the nationalist Kuomintang, and warlord factions

<>1919ap04:my01; Germany | Bavarian Soviet Republic established and lasted less than one month before it was crushed by troops

<>1919ap06:Odessa [map] occupied by Red Army after French interventionist forces withdrew

<>1919ap13:India, Amritsar | Unarmed civilian subjects of English imperialist rule were slaughtered by troops under English command. Jawaharlal Nehru joined Gandhi in organizing anti-imperialist movement

<>1919my:1919je; Donbas [basin of the Don River] General Anton Denikin (1872-1947) led a campaign that suggested that this anti-Soviet "White-guardists" might have some chance of victory in the revolutionary civil war [McC2:173-6]

<>1919my06:Kamerun (Cameroon) and German East Africa, both German colonial holdings in east and southwest Africa, taken by England [MAP]
*--Soon Belgian complaints resulted in some of this going to Belgium

<>1919je22:Versailles Peace Treaty imposed impossible economic, territorial, and military requirements on Germany [W] [DPH:353-9]
*1919je28:France, Versailles signing ceremony described by Harold Nicolson [Eye:490-2]
*--Long after the war and the Paris Peace Conference, Georges Clemenceau still wrote about Germany and WW1 with bitterness [P20:79 | PWT2:276-9]
*--German Delegation summoned at the end to the Paris Peace Conference criticized what was to be imposed on them. The generous and liberal vision of Wilson's Fourteen Points had evaporated [P20:81 | PWT2:279-81]
*1919mr26:Afrikaan-born English war cabinet member J.C. Smuts wrote powerful and prescient critique of the Versailles settlements. He stated two principles: "(1) We cannot destroy Germany without destroying Europe; (2) We cannot save Europe without the co-operation of Germany" [BNE:221-3]
*--Adviser to English at conference, Oxford University economics professor John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) [W], resigned in outrage and published prophetic study The Economic Consequences of the Peace [W] [Excerpts = CWC:175-90 | BPE:540-59]
*--Weimar German national assembly, now under leadership of new government led by social democrat Gustave Bauer, accepted harsh terms

<>1919su:Azerbaidjan, Baku | English interventionist military withdrew

<>1919jy12:England and France authorized renewed trade relations with Germany

<>1919jy27:jy31; USA. Chicago gripped by four days of race rioting

<>1919jy31:Germany adopted Weimar Constitution [CCC2,2:1125-30 | DPH:406-9]
*--The harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty helped seal the doom of this fourteen-year (1919-1933) constitutional experiment. Domestic trends did not help. Political cynicism combined with anti-political visions of utopia in the everyday life of those who felt betrayed at the end of the "Great War"
*1920s:French writer Paul Valéry captured the disillusioned spirit of war-weary Europe [P20:84 | PWT2:284]
*--Remarque's All Quiet described The Lost Generation [P20:85 | PWT2:285]
*--E.g., Artur Moeller van den Bruck expressed a visionary cynicism when he attacked liberal constitutionalism in the name of a transcendent national unity "above politics" [CCC2,2:1161-70]
*--E.g., German "Free Corps" movement arose among veterans who sought to block strong social-democratic movement in the aftermath of the war, and to check the spread of "communism". "Anti-communism" was the central component of emerging right-wing movements throughout Europe, but they were every bit as hostile to European liberal and traditional conservative politics. This was the atmosphere in which the Nazi movement flourished

<>1919au05:Turkey threatened with European imperialist dismemberment, carried out by "Allies" (mainly England and France working together, behind the backs of their other "allies"). England and France had occupied Istanbul since the last days of WW1. England seized Baghdad railroad earlier in 1919
*--At Turkish Nationalist Congress, Mustafa Kemal declared himself independent of Istanbul, raised up a rebel army, and began the proce