The October Revolution and fundamental changes in the state and
the social structure of Russia. Constitution of the RSFSR 1918.
After the fall of the autocracy in February 1917, Russia developed along the path of a parliamentary republic. However, the democratization of state administration, courts and public life in the crisis conditions of the war and the growing economic ruin resulted in a total collapse of the institutions of power. The provisional government was never able to cope with this destructive process.
As a result of the political and economic crisis that took shape in the fall of 1917, events took place in Russia that radically changed the course of development of the Russian state.
These and many other factors predetermined the October Revolution of 1917, the transfer of all power to the Soviets, and the creation of the Soviet state. The Soviet state and law were fundamentally different from all those that still existed. But it was not born by chance, but was the result of the action of certain historical factors, the main of which was Great October Socialist Revolution.
The October Revolution and fundamental changes in the state and social system of Russia.
The revolution was caused by certain objective and subjective reasons. This is described in most detail in the monograph of the famous Russian historian, Professor I.Ya. Froyanov "October 17th" (looking from the present). SPb., 1997.
First of all, it is class antagonisms between labor and capital, which is characteristic of any bourgeois society. The Russian bourgeoisie was unable or unwilling to reduce the intensity of the class struggle as much as possible.
has not been resolved and peasant question. The peasants were not satisfied with either the 1861 reform or the Stolypin reforms. They frankly wanted all the land. In addition, as a result of the differentiation of the peasantry in the countryside, a new contradiction has become aggravated. Along with the landowner, a kulak also appeared there, who left the community and enriched himself as a result of the redistribution of peasant lands.
By 1917, escalated and national contradictions, the national liberation movement grew sharply.
Importance had and World War in which Russia was one of the belligerents. The bulk of the population and, especially, the soldiers suffered from the many-sided hardships of the war, wished for a speedy conclusion of peace. Only the upper class of the bourgeoisie, which made huge amounts of money on military supplies, was in favor of continuing the war to a victorious end.
On the other hand, the war armed the millions of the population, taught them how to handle weapons, created a psychological prerequisite for overcoming the moral barrier that forbids a person to kill other people.
Another important prerequisite was that provisional government lost prestige among the bulk of the population, without solving a single important issue raised by the revolution.
Among the subjective factors, a number of the most important should be noted:
Widespread popularity in the society of socialist ideas in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, all socialist parties together received 85% of the mandates);
Unpopularity among the broad masses of bourgeois and monarchist views (thus the Cadet Party received only 5% of the seats in the elections);
The existence in Russia of a party that is ready to lead the masses to revolution - the Bolshevik, the presence of a strong leader, authoritative both in the party itself and among the people (V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin).
The historical background for the emergence of Soviet statehood was the views of K. Marx, F. Engels, developed politically by V.I. Lenin. The course of Lenin's thought was such that the revolution for our country is not a national catastrophe, but a means of preventing or saving it, a new political basis for the all-round development of civilization.
According to Academician P.G. Volobuev, the October Revolution in those conditions was a Russian, different from the Western European version of the path to a modern industrial civilization.
In this regard, the thought of the American scientist A.E. Rabinovich, professor at Indiana University, USA. He believes that the October Revolution is one of the most important events of the 20th century. In his opinion, it became a turning point in the history of not only Russia itself, but also had a huge, both positive and negative impact on the fate of Europe.
A.E. Rabinovich notes two main reasons for the victory of the Bolsheviks. First lies in the fact that the Bolshevik Party in 1917 was a democratic and decentralized organization that had extensive ties with the masses. The Bolsheviks knew better the mood of the masses, their aspirations. Second the reason, which follows directly from the first, is that the program of action of the Bolsheviks proceeded from the knowledge of the masses. The slogans put forward by them most of all reflected the desires of the people: peace, land for the peasants, power for the Soviets.
The October Revolution opened up the possibility of putting the ideal state-legal concept into practice on a national scale.
The October armed uprising won victory in Petrograd with great ease and almost without bloodshed. Its result was the emergence of the Soviet state.
Events in October 1917 developed very rapidly. On October 12, at the initiative of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, Military Revolutionary Committee under the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and existed until December 5, 1917. It was a non-party body.
Created as a legal body to counter the counter-revolutionary plans of the Provisional Government, it soon became the body for the preparation and conduct of the uprising in Petrograd.
On October 21, 1917, the St. Petersburg garrison, after rallies and resolutions, recognized the Soviet as its supreme authority, and named the Military Revolutionary Committee as its immediate leader.
The Military Revolutionary Committee was the highest authority in the country from 10 am on October 25, 1917, until the adoption at 5 am on October 26, 1917 by the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of the appeal "To the Workers, Soldiers and Peasants", which stated that " ...the congress takes power into its own hands...”.
In fact, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, with the formation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, was gradually losing these powers with the opening of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. with the creation of departments of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the apparatus of the people's commissariats.
The Military Revolutionary Committee had real power, relying on Red Guard units, army units loyal to the Bolsheviks, sailors of the fleet, on the district and Petrograd Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, on the Soviets and local military revolutionary committees.
The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed its commissars to military units, to individual institutions, enterprises of Petrograd and to the provinces. From its inception until November 10, 1917, it appointed 184 commissars to civil institutions, 85 to military units, and 72 to the provinces.
The commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee were empowered to reorganize the state apparatus, to dismiss personnel, and to arrest "obvious counter-revolutionaries." They had to act in close contact with the general meetings and committees of soldiers and workers, with the Soviets.
It was, in essence, the only well-established apparatus (along with the Soviets) through which the new government carried out all state activities. According to its competence, it was a comprehensive emergency body of the Soviet state.
After the victory of the October uprising, the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee became an all-Russian body. His connections and relations with other authorities (the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars) were determined by the requirements of the moment.
The first task of any revolutionary power is to prevent its liquidation by military means until it has taken shape and has not received a minimum of popular support. The most dangerous period is the first hours and days, when even the information about the seizure of power has not yet spread in society.
Immediately after October 25, 1917 Soviet power had to repel the attack on Petrograd by the troops of Kerensky-Krasnov, and in Petrograd itself - put an end to the junkers. These counter-revolutionary actions were not successful, they showed a decline in the strength and spirit of the Provisional Government, which had exhausted its potential.
With all its severity, the new state faced the problem exit from the world imperialist war. Even in the summer of 1917, it became obvious that after the destruction of the statehood of tsarist Russia, it was impossible to continue the war. Having taken power under the slogan of “peace without annexations and indemnities”, the Soviets began peace negotiations, and on March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey (with annexations and indemnities).
Against the background of the continuous emergence and solution of critical, urgent problems that threatened complete collapse, the formation of a new state began.
The apparatus of the state of tsarist Russia was basically broken in February. The new order has not yet taken shape, it was replaced by “temporary constructions”, because. the leaders of the liberal-bourgeois revolution took the position of "non-decision".
The processes of demolition of the bourgeois state apparatus and the creation of a new one were interrelated.
Consider the practice of the formation of the Soviet state after October.
The beginning of the creation of the actual Soviet state system was laid by II All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which began its work on the night of October 25-26.
The absolute majority of the Soviets represented at the congress demanded the abolition of the power of the landowners and capitalists and its transfer into the hands of the Soviets.
A group of leaders of the Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries who objected to an armed uprising demanded that the congress be suspended, but was not supported by the majority of the delegates. Hoping to disrupt the work of the congress, their supporters (about 10% of the congress delegates) left it. In this regard, among a certain part of domestic and foreign historians, there is a point of view about the unrepresentativeness of the congress. However, the facts say otherwise. All of what was then Russia, including its national regions, was represented at the congress. Not even all the rank-and-file members of the Menshevik and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries left the congress.
In the very first document of the congress - the Appeal: "To the workers, soldiers and peasants" - it was said that "... the congress takes power into its own hands", and the Provisional Government was overthrown. The congress decided that local power would be transferred to the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. Thus, the congress legally formalized the Republic of Soviets.
The congress adopted two important decrees: "On Peace" and "On Land". All warring peoples and their governments were asked to immediately conclude a truce and start negotiations for a just, democratic peace.
Congress elected All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), which consisted mainly of the Bolsheviks and representatives of some other left parties (Left SRs, Ukrainian Socialists), since the Mensheviks and Right SRs left the congress in protest against the usurpation of power by the Bolsheviks. L. B. Rosenfeld (Kamenev) became the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee was declared the highest authority in the country during the breaks between congresses of Soviets.
It consisted of 101 people, among whom were 62 Bolsheviks and 29 Left Social Revolutionaries. The working body of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was its Presidium, which prepared materials for the meetings of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Trying to find a compromise of all leftist forces, the congress decided that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee could be replenished with representatives of groups that had left the congress.
At the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets was created Council of People's Commissars(SNK) headed by V.I. Lenin, called upon to play the role of the government of Russia up to the Constituent Assembly.
The government was headed by V.I. Lenin, L.D. became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Bronstein (Trotsky), People's Commissar for Internal Affairs - A.I. Rykov, People's Commissar for Nationalities - I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin). The creation of the apparatus of people's commissariats was greatly complicated by the mass sabotage of officials of the former ministries and the lack of personnel.
At the end of October 1917, the Mensheviks and Right SRs, who opposed the Bolsheviks, decided to liquidate the Bolshevik monopoly on power by extra-parliamentary methods. Occupying a leading position in the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Trade Union of Railway Workers (Vikzhel), they, threatening a general strike in transport, demanded in an ultimatum form the creation of a “homogeneous socialist government” from representatives of all socialist parties. This idea was supported by some Bolshevik leaders: Kamenev, Rykov and others.
As a result of the internal party discussion, the supporters of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky, and 15 members of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars, who were inclined towards the option of creating a coalition government, were forced to resign. Ya.M. became the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Sverdlov.
On November 1, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution on the question of the terms of the agreement with other parties: their recognition of the program of the Soviet state, expressed in the above-mentioned decrees; recognition of the need to fight counter-revolution (Kerensky, Kornilov, Kaledin); recognition of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies as the only source of power and responsibility of the government to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
At the Extraordinary All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers, held in December 1917, the policy of the Vikzhel leadership was condemned, the delegates spoke in favor of supporting the Soviet government. Thus, the crisis was eliminated.
On November 4, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution on the right of the Council of People's Commissars to publish urgent decrees within the framework of the general program of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Thus, three bodies were endowed with legislative powers: the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars.
On November 15, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, elected by the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, merged with the Executive Committee (108 people), elected at the Extraordinary All-Russian Peasants' Congress.
This greatly strengthened the position new government. The joint session of these Central Executive Committees and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies unanimously confirmed the laws "On Land", "On Peace" and the "Regulations on Workers' Control" adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
An important document of a constitutional nature was adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 3, 1918. Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People. It determined the geographical scope of the competence of the Soviet state (Russia) and the type of state (Soviet Republic).
Local authorities and administrations. On the eve of the October Revolution, city and zemstvo self-government bodies existed in the localities. Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, commissars of the Provisional Government, bodies of class self-government.
The II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies approved the principle of absolute power and autocracy of the Soviets in the field, and also announced the liquidation of the posts of commissars of the Provisional Government. By the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 10, 1917, all estates and estate divisions of citizens and estate organizations and institutions were abolished.
Local power passed to the Soviets. So, during the period from October 25, 1917 to February 11, 1918, Soviet power was established in 90 provincial and other large cities. The process of merging the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies with the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies began.
The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 24, 1917 established the right of voters to recall their elected representatives, including those from local Soviets. Local Soviets created their own armed formations (detachments of the workers' militia), which strengthened their power.
The Soviets were a form of power that most corresponded to the level of political culture, the traditions of the life of the Russian people, and the conditions of 1917.
They were characterized by such features as electivity, collective decision-making, delegation of powers from lower to higher bodies, unity of legislative, executive, judicial power (less bureaucracy), omnipotence in solving everyday problems.
The Soviet state selectively approached the zemstvo and city self-government bodies: those who actively opposed the Soviet government were abolished, the loyal ones were temporarily kept until the local Soviets created their own apparatus. This process was completed by August 1918.
In order to unify local authorities, the NKVD addressed on December 24, 1917 to all the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', Peasants' and Laborers' Deputies and sent out an instruction "On the rights and obligations of the Soviets." It noted that the Soviets are independent in solving local issues, but must act in accordance with the regulations of the central bodies and higher Soviets. This was an important step towards a unified state system with a hierarchy of power.
The Soviets and their bodies were entrusted with the tasks of managing and servicing the administrative, economic, financial, cultural and educational aspects of local life. They were endowed with the right to issue decrees, i.e. local regulations. The Soviets elected from among their members an executive body (executive committee, presidium), to which they entrusted the implementation of resolutions and all current management work.
Local Soviets could make requisitions and confiscations, impose fines, close counter-revolutionary press organs, make arrests, dissolve public organizations that called for active opposition or the overthrow of Soviet power. As a temporary measure, the appointment of commissars was allowed in those provinces and districts where the power of the Soviets was not sufficiently strengthened. The councils were state funded.
The Bolsheviks were the first party in terms of the number of deputies in the local Soviets. So, in the composition of the congresses of provincial soviets in 19 provinces in the first half of 1918, there were about 47.5% of Bolsheviks, and about 25% of representatives of other parties, mainly Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. On June 14, 1918, representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionaries (right and center) and the RSDLP (Mensheviks) were expelled from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and it was proposed to all Soviets "to remove representatives of these factions from their midst."
constituent Assembly. On October 27, 1917, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee at its first meeting decided to hold elections to the Constituent Assembly on November 12, 1917, appointed by the Provisional Government. The elections were held according to lists compiled before the revolution.
For example, the Left and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, divided into two parties with different attitudes towards Soviet power, went on the same list as Socialist-Revolutionaries. Historians, including bourgeois ones, admit that the ratio of the number of deputies of the Right SRs (370) and the Left SRs (40) was accidental and did not reflect the position of the peasantry towards these already two different parties. Among the delegates to the peasant congresses, for which the Right and Left SRs were already elected on separate lists, the Left SRs predominated, and in the elections to the Soviets in the cities, the SRs were even inferior to the Cadets.
The attitude towards the Constituent Assembly was a matter of principle, since it was an organ that, in its type, corresponded to the bourgeois-liberal path of development of the revolution.
It said that the possibility of coexistence of two types of statehood was exhausted, since the peasantry and the army definitely went over to the side of Soviet power, and the bourgeois forces began an armed struggle with it (the Kaledin uprising, the actions of bourgeois regimes in Ukraine, Belarus, Finland and the Caucasus) . Therefore, the question of the attitude towards the Constituent Assembly is not a legal one. It can be included in state building only if it recognizes Soviet power. Being the pinnacle of democracy in the course of the bourgeois revolution, the Constituent Assembly was "late".
There are discrepancies in the data given by historians on the number of votes cast for certain parties in the elections. Apparently, about 44 million voters took part in the elections, 715 deputies were elected (according to other sources - 703). About 60% voted for the Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, various national parties, about 25% for the Bolsheviks, about 15% for the Cadets and other right-wing parties.
Thus, parties with a fundamentally bourgeois program received about 15% of the votes of those who took part in the elections, parties with various socialist programs - 85%.
The conflict that arose in connection with the Constituent Assembly is a conflict between the socialists, and, above all, between the two revolutionary parties of the socialists - the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries (the Mensheviks had 16 seats, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries -410). V.M. Chernov, as chairman of the Assembly, even declared "the will to socialism."
On the eve of the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, on January 3, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution “On recognizing as counter-revolutionary action all attempts to appropriate the functions of state power”, which stated that all power belongs to the Soviets and Soviet institutions and therefore any attempt to appropriate the functions of state power will be suppressed up to before the use of armed force.
The Constituent Assembly began its work on January 5, 1918 in Petrograd, in the Tauride Palace, about 410 deputies were present with a quorum of 400. The Right Social Revolutionary V.M. was elected chairman. Chernov (former Minister of the Provisional Government). Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya.M. recognize Soviet power and its most important decrees: on peace, land, etc. The Left SRs also called on the assembly to adopt the Declaration and transfer power to the Soviets.
The Constituent Assembly rejected the Declaration (237 votes against 138), after which the Bolsheviks, Left SRs, Muslim nationalists and Ukrainian SRs left it. However, the Assembly, no longer having a quorum, adopted a resolution that the supreme power in the country belongs to it.
At five o'clock in the morning, the anarchist sailor A.G. Zheleznyakov suggested V.M. Chernov to stop the work of the Assembly, saying: "The guard is tired." At 4:40 the Constituent Assembly interrupted its activities. On January 6, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree "On the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly." It was not necessary to shoot the Taurida Palace, its doors were simply locked.
The refusal of the right SRs to cooperate with the Soviet government directed the development of events in the worst case scenario. A compromise, according to V.I. Lenin, would have prevented a civil war.
The Constituent Assembly as an alternative to the Soviets in those historical conditions was not viable. It did not have a social base that could support it, although the Social Revolutionaries did work in the troops and in factories. Judging by the recollections of eyewitnesses, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly did not attract much attention at that moment (it has become an important topic in the recent anti-Soviet ideological campaign).
The further fate of the deputies is eloquent. Some of them, having created an illegal "Interfactional Council of the Constituent Assembly", in the summer of 1918 formed on the Volga and the Urals, where the Soviet power was liquidated by the White Czechs, anti-Soviet governments (Komuch, the Provisional Siberian Government, then the Directory, declared by the All-Russian authorities, the Provisional Regional Government of the Urals , Supreme Administration of the Northern Region). After Kolchak came to power, part of the deputies - the "founders" - were sent abroad, the other was arrested. On December 23, they were shot in Omsk on the orders of Kolchak.
January 10, 1918 gathered III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies who looked like the successor to the Constituent Assembly. On January 13, the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies began its work. These congresses united, and thus a single supreme body of power arose in the country. The congress approved the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, and also decided to remove the word "provisional" from the name of the Soviet government.
At the congress, the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People was adopted, in which for the first time the name of the country was given and its federal structure was announced: “The Soviet Russian Republic is established on the basis of a free union of free nations as a federation of Soviet national republics.”
In the resolution "On federal institutions of the Russian Republic, the congress instructed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to develop the main provisions of the Constitution for submission to the next Congress of Soviets. The congress elected the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the amount of 306 members, among whom were 160 Bolsheviks, 125 Left Social Revolutionaries and representatives of other parties: Mensheviks (internationalists and defencists), Right Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchist communists.
Customs. After the October Revolution, the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Customs Employees and its grassroots organizations took the platform of Soviet power. The customs authorities and institutions of Russia continued to fulfill their functional duties.
The first government document, which fixed the subordination of customs authorities and their functional duties, as well as the procedure for the import and export of goods, was the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of December 29, 1917 "On the procedure for issuing permits for the import and export of goods." It stated that permits for the export and import of goods from abroad were issued by the foreign trade department of the Commissariat of Trade and Industry.
The declaration of foreign trade as a monopoly of the Soviet state required a revision of the legislative acts on the customs business.
May 29, 1918 V.I. Lenin signed a decree "On the delimitation of the rights of the central and local authorities to collect duties and regulate the activities of local customs institutions."
The preamble of the decree stated that in the interests of a precise delimitation of the rights of the central and local Soviet authorities to collect duties, as well as to regulate the activities of local customs institutions, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR decided that the imposition of customs duties with other fees on goods transported across the border belongs exclusively to the central government. Customs offices are organs of central Soviet power and are directly administered by the Commissariat of Finance for the Department of Customs Duties. No civil and military authorities, as well as professional organizations, have the right to interfere within the borders of the operation of customs with orders arising from the course of customs business. On the contrary, all authorities give full support to the legitimate demands of the customs authorities.
The decree of May 29, 1918 regulated the relationship between customs institutions and local authorities. Regional and local Councils of Deputies had the right to oversee the activities of customs institutions, without interfering in the technical and administrative part of customs work.
This decree obliged the customs authorities to be guided in their work by all the existing provisions on the nationalization of foreign trade, allowed the application of procedural norms, until the revision of the tsarist customs charter relating to traditional inspection operations, the calculation of duties, the release of goods.
In essence, the decree was an act of creating Soviet customs institutions. On June 29, 1918, a decree was signed, according to which the Department of Customs Duties was renamed into the Main Directorate customs control under the People's Commissariat of Trade and Industry: from now on, not only in essence, but also in form, control over all property transported across the border, and not collecting steel, has become the main thing in the work of customs. This main department was headed by G.I. Kharkov.
Changes in the social order. The October Revolution brought about fundamental changes in the social structure of Russia. The main thing was the transition from the previous socio-economic formation to a new one - socialist. The proletariat, which took power, had to create new system on the ruins of the old.
The socialization of the means of production was carried out primarily through their nationalization ie, the transfer of the property of the bourgeoisie and landowners to the ownership of the state.
Historically, the first object of nationalization was the land. This problem has already been solved by the well-known decree of the Second Congress of Soviets. The law turned into public property not only the property of the exploiters, but also the land of the peasants. This did not bother the latter, because. the nationalized land remained in their use, and with a huge increment at the expense of the landowners' lands.
The socialization of the means of production in the countryside proceeded along the line industrial cooperation. Collective farms arose already in the first days of Soviet power. Their most common form then was communes. They were usually created on the landowners' estates, from where their former owners were expelled. The distribution in the communes was egalitarian.
It was more difficult to socialize the means of production in the cities. The nationalization of industry took place gradually and in stages. The transitional step in this process was work control. After October, it was declared a state institution and played a major role in the fight against sabotage by entrepreneurs. The organs of workers' control also performed such an important function as training workers in the ability to manage production.
This transitional period was short-lived. At the end of 1917, the Likinskaya manufactory in the Moscow region was the very first to be nationalized. By the summer of 1918, almost all large and medium industry was socialized.
As a result of economic transformations, a multi-structural Soviet economy with socialist, state-capitalist, capitalist, small-scale and patriarchal sectors has developed.
The idea of abolishing private property also entailed the abolition of the exploiting classes by depriving them of their property. These issues were resolved in the process of nationalization. The kulaks in the countryside were pushed back, but not eliminated.
The revolution also changed the position of the working classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat was initially carried out in alliance with the poorest peasantry, which constituted the bulk of the country's rural population.
The fate of the intelligentsia was not easy. She met in the majority of October negatively. She feared, and not without reason, that the revolution would cause irreparable damage to culture. Most of the intelligentsia took a wait-and-see position, and its elite, closely associated with the former government, showed open hostility and emigrated from the country.
The Soviet government soon began to take steps to win it over to its side. Yes, and life itself forced the intelligentsia to go to the service of the new government.
Immediately after the victory of the October Revolution, for the first time in the history of the country, a decisive step was taken to eliminate class and other privileges, to establish equal rights for citizens.
The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 11, 1917 stated that all ranks (nobles, merchants, philistines, peasants), titles (count, prince, baron, etc.) and the names of civil ranks were destroyed, one common one was established for the entire population title "citizen of the Russian Republic".
By decree of the Council of People's Commissars of December 16, 1917, all ranks and ranks in the army were abolished, all advantages associated with previous ranks, as well as titles, orders and other insignia, were abolished.
Along with the elimination of class restrictions, the inequality of men and women in all areas of state, social and economic life was eliminated, and the special position of the church in society was abolished. It was separated from the state, and the school from the church.
The first step in resolving the national question, which was acute in Russia, was the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia" and the Appeal "To all the working Muslims of Russia and the East." These were politically important documents. They proclaimed: equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia; the right to free self-determination; abolition of national and national-religious privileges and restrictions; free development of national minorities and ethnic groups; freedom and inviolability of beliefs and customs of the working Muslims of Russia and the East.
Thus, as a result of the October Revolution of 1917, significant changes took place in the social and state system in the country. The form of government was declared the Republic of Soviets, the form state structure- soviet federation political regime was defined as a socialist democracy for the working classes.
Constitution of the RSFSR 1918. Starting from the first day of its existence. The Soviet state issues a whole series of acts of a constitutional nature. They were mentioned above. But the forms of power and administration were largely formed spontaneously, in the course of the revolutionary process. In order to regulate this process and consolidate those forms that corresponded to the main foundations of the new statehood, an official Constitution was needed. Its creation is a turning point in the formation of the Soviet state.
On the initiative of the Left SRs, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets instructed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to develop the main provisions of the Constitution of the RSFSR and present them to the next Congress of Soviets. However, in the conditions of an acute crisis (the breakdown of the peace talks in Brest-Litovsk, the German offensive at the front, the strengthening of the opposition of the left communists and the left SRs), the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was unable to fulfill this order.
An inter-party commission was created (in proportion to the representation of parties in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee), which prepared an agreed text of the draft Constitution in three months, it was published on July 3, 1918 and submitted for approval to the Central Committee of the RCP (b) for subsequent discussion at the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Prior to this, the materials of the commission were published in Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the draft sections were discussed in the press.
The disputes in the commission were fundamental, but still managed to create a document that did not hamper the search for state forms: the main provisions of this Constitution, despite amendments and additions, were preserved until 1936, during 18 very turbulent years. The main controversy that caused controversy was between supporters of the weakening central government state, development initiatives of local authorities and those who sought to concentrate power in the center. Another plane, in principle, of the same problem concerned the type of federation: some demanded, in the current language, greater “sovereignty of the regions”, others sought to strengthen, under a new ideological design, “one and indivisible” Russia. The first set of principles (“less than a state”), reflecting the hostility of syndicalism to any statehood, was mainly defended by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, as well as a prominent worker of the NKJ M.A. Reisner, who believed that the RSFSR should become an association of "labor communes". The practical Bolsheviks (above all I.V. Stalin) stood for a stronger statehood. The latter won, but the very topic of the dispute anticipated many future contradictions in state building.
On July 10, 1918, the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the Constitution. At the suggestion of V.I. Lenin, the first section of the Constitution was adopted by the III Congress of Soviets in January 1918 "Declaration of the rights of the working and exploited people."
This declaration, which consisted of 16 articles, was the first constitutional act Soviet Republic, which consolidated the results of the October Revolution and proclaimed the basic principles of the new socialist state. The draft declaration was written by V.I. Lenin.
The text of the declaration consists of 4 sections:
Section 1 establishes the political foundations of the Soviet socialist state. Russia was proclaimed a Republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, who held all power in the center and locally. The Soviet Republic was established on the basis of the free Union of Free Nations as a federation of Soviet national republics.
Section 2 defined the main task declared by the Soviet government - the destruction of all exploitation of man by man, the complete elimination of the division of society into classes, the suppression of the resistance of the exploiters and the establishment of a socialist organization of society. Further, the abolition of private ownership of land, decrees on workers' control, the organization of the Supreme Council of National Economy, and the nationalization of banks were confirmed. General labor service was introduced; to protect the results of the revolution, the formation of the Red Army and the complete and complete disarmament of the propertied classes were decreed.
The 3rd section declared the principles of Soviet foreign policy - the struggle for peace, the abolition of secret treaties, respect for the national sovereignty of all peoples, a complete break with the policy of developed bourgeois states that enslave the working people of colonies and dependent states, the proclamation of the Council of People's Commissars of Finland's independence, the withdrawal of troops from Persia , introduced there during the 1st World War, declared freedom of choice in the self-determination of Turkish Armenia, the annulment of loans concluded by the tsarist, and then by the Provisional Government.
The 4th section proclaimed the elimination of the exploiting classes from participating in the administration of the Soviet state, emphasized the belonging of power to the working people and their authorized representatives - the Soviets, it was emphasized that Soviet power was limited to establishing the fundamental principles of the federation of Soviet republics, allowing the workers and peasants of each nation to take an independent part in the federal government and other federal agencies.
The Declaration laid the cornerstone of the foundations of the constitutional order of the RSFSR, the main directions of economic and social policy. While expressing the aspirations of the working people, the main provisions of the declaration nevertheless had a pronounced class coloring, which significantly limited its democratic potential.
Section “Design of Soviet power” strengthened the relationship between government and administration.
The basis of the Soviet state apparatus was principle of democratic centralism. It should be emphasized that the Constitution endowed the executive body of the Council of People's Commissars with legislative powers (just like the body of the Congress of Soviets of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - with executive powers). This was dictated not only by the emergency situation, but also by the very idea, through the reunification of legislative and executive functions, to overcome the weaknesses of bourgeois parliamentarism, whose task was to achieve a balance of class interests.
The Soviet government was not going to look for such a balance, since it declared itself as a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, which, as it strengthens, will lead to the construction of a classless society. The Constitution did not specifically stipulate the principles for the exercise of the judicial function. However, the fact that the organization of judicial activity and control over it was entrusted to the NKJ clearly showed its subordination to the executive body.
This idea had a theoretical and ideological justification in Marxism. But, in essence, the assertion of a single and indivisible power (“the dictatorship of the proletariat”) meant the unconscious restoration of the autocratic state in its conciliar, Soviet image. The significance of this decision was extremely important - the entire development of Soviet statehood was directed towards a path that rejected the main principle of the liberal state of civil society, the principle of separation of powers. The fact that this cardinal decision did not cause discussions and almost did not attract attention among the existing opposition suggests that it was very consonant with the ideas of power and the state rooted in culture.
The real problem of the formation of the Soviet state was that the Soviets arose spontaneously, without clearly defined functions and powers, in factories and villages. The petty soviets were a model of direct democracy (for example, the factory soviets included all factory workers).
The big Soviets consisted of representatives citizens or workers. For some time, such Soviets were even called “Soviet Deputies” - as opposed to just Soviets.
The transformation of the Soviets into system state power was a complex and completely new task. The constitution, which was supposed to solve this problem, managed to reflect the existing contradiction and leave open paths its decisions: “all power” belongs to the Soviets, but “supreme power” belongs to the central bodies, whose powers the Constitution did not limit, but only illustrated with a list of “issues of national importance”.
And then followed Art. 50, which warned that "in addition to the issues listed above, the jurisdiction of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is subject to all issues that they recognize as subject to their resolution."
The constitution fixed the most important events of the Soviet state in Economics: nationalization of banks and land; the introduction of workers' control as the first step towards the nationalization of factories and transport; cancellation of foreign loans concluded before the revolution. The constitution reflected the federal principle of the state structure of the RSFSR.
The constitution proclaimed a class, proletarian democracy for the working people. In other words, it did not recognize the formal equality of rights (although the class distinctions that existed in tsarist Russia were abolished and a single category of citizens was established). A number of civil rights were deprived of about 5 million people. A separate article justified this discrimination as a temporary measure to prevent "damage to the interests of the socialist revolution."
The task was to provide the working people with “complete, comprehensive and free education". The equal rights of citizens were recognized regardless of their race and nationality. The church was separated from the state and the school from the church, and the freedom of religious and anti-religious propaganda was recognized for all citizens.
The Constitution does not contain the right to work, rest, education, etc., since it was decided to write in it only those rights that could be exercised under those conditions.
There was some discrimination in the suffrage of workers and peasants: one delegate from 25 thousand people was elected to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in the cities. voters and in the village - from 125 thousand rubles. residents. This was done so as not to change the usual methods of calculation, according to which they were previously elected to separate congresses: one - workers' and soldiers', and the other - peasant deputies (although earlier there was one delegate from the peasants from 150 thousand inhabitants).
Elections to all parts of the Soviets, except for urban and rural ones, were multistage, indirect. The right to elect and be elected to the Soviets was enjoyed by working people who had reached the age of 18 by the day of elections, regardless of religion, nationality, gender, settled way of life, etc. Soldiers also enjoyed this right. Voters had the right to recall an elected deputy.
The Constitution outlined program tasks for the transitional period from capitalism to communism: the destruction of the exploitation of man by man, the merciless suppression of the resistance of the exploiters, the elimination of the division of society into classes, the building of socialism.
Creation of the foundations of Soviet law. Sources of Soviet law. The appeal of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee “To the citizens of Russia” and the appeal of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets “To the workers, soldiers and peasants” can be considered the first legal acts of the Soviet state. An important legal act, which was almost entirely included in the first Soviet Constitution, was the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, adopted by the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets on January 12, 1918.
This Declaration was not the traditional document of the liberal state on the rights of the individual. It proclaimed the principles of social and economic policy, and already in this document expressed main idea which distinguished the Soviet state from the bourgeois-liberal one: human freedom must be protected not from the state, but with the help of the state.
Of course, the restructuring of the entire system of law could not be instantaneous, and in 1917-1918. along with the laws of the Soviet state acted old law, which gradually lost their force as the formation of new legislation.
The All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars had the right to issue legislative acts. and since 1919 also the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Legal acts were also issued by the central government and local Soviets. In a number of cases, public organizations of workers (for example, trade unions in the field of labor law) took part in the development of normative acts. Most often, legislative acts were called decrees.
Until the end of the civil war, the Soviet state acted in a state of emergency. Neither a coherent system of legal norms nor a system of law enforcement agencies has yet been created.
In the absence of established legal norms practical matters were decided either on the basis of old norms, or on the basis of “revolutionary legal consciousness”, the source of which was class consciousness (or even “class instinct”). In practice, this often meant making decisions under the pressure of circumstances, based on “revolutionary expediency.” In general, common sense and common cultural norms prevailed, but all parties to the multidimensional conflict that broke out in Russia repeatedly resorted to extreme measures and terrible excesses, characteristic of any revolution and civil war.
Civil law. In the course of the first measures taken by the Soviet government, land and its subsoil, banks, industrial enterprises, railways and fleets, etc., successively passed into the ownership of the state. The sphere of citizens' private ownership of tools of labor and means of production, which serves to extract income, has been sharply reduced.
Many acts were directly aimed at undermining private property and, especially, at stopping the growing wave of transactions aimed at selling off and dividing large property in order to bring it out from under the threat of nationalization.
Obligation law. Contractual relations were reduced. At the same time, back in December 1917, the Council of People's Commissars confirmed that all obligations arising from contracts for the supply and procurement of food for the army remained in force. Relations between enterprises that became state property were built mainly on administrative, and not on civil law.
Inheritance law. The decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the abolition of inheritance" (April 27, 1918) abolished inheritance both by law and by will.
After the death of the owner, both movable and real estate became state property. Only part of the property, worth no more than 10 thousand rubles, was transferred to the spouse or next of kin (in the instructions of the NKJ it was explained that the main thing was not the established limit, but the source of the acquisition of inherited property). However, the property of the deceased could be received by his needy and disabled relatives.
In reality, the decree abolished the inheritance of bourgeois private property, but not labor. A special decree prohibited donations and any other gratuitous provision, transfer, assignment, etc. property worth more than 10 thousand rubles. In the field of intellectual property, the state was given the right to nationalize copyrighted works and inventions. Copyright was not transferable.
labor law. In the former systems of law in Russia, labor law was not singled out as a separate branch, it was a short part of civil law. Now it is being formed as an independent branch of law. Questions of labor relations constituted an important section of the political economy of Marxism and were discussed in the documents of the RSDLP from its very inception. The general provisions of the views of the Bolsheviks on labor relations were reflected in the decrees of 1917-1918.
Categories inherent in Marxism work force, labor, surplus value and wages were developed in relation to the market economy of the West in its pure, even abstract form. They did not reflect real labor relations in Russia and were perceived by the public consciousness in a significantly different way than in theory.
At the revolutionary stage of the development of the Soviet state, this did not matter much, because. From Marxism were taken, basically, the topical ideas of equality, justice and liberation from the exploitation of man by man. Subsequently, the discrepancy between the theory of Marxism and Soviet reality became more and more harmful to the health of Soviet society.
The first legal act on labor was the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of October 29, 1917 "On the eight-hour working day, the duration and distribution of working time." The Soviet state was the first in the world to legislate 8 hour work day for all employed persons. The working week should not exceed 46 hours.
The night work of women and adolescents under 16 years of age was banned (by the way, this caused protests by some factory committees). Women and teenagers under 18 were not allowed to work underground and overtime. The working day for teenagers under 18 was limited to 6 hours. Overtime work was paid at double the rate, and so on.
This decree was transmitted to the localities by telegraph and entered into force immediately. In December 1917, sickness insurance was introduced by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In June 1918, the Council of People's Commissars introduced paid two-week vacations for workers and employees.
The Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People introduced universal labor service. Later, this provision was included in the first Constitution of the RSFSR, which declared labor to be the duty of all citizens and proclaimed the slogan: "He who does not work, let him not eat!"
In December 1918, the first Labor Code(Labor Code). It regulated in detail labor relations and related social rights (for example, rights to unemployment benefits). The Labor Code was valid for both state and private enterprises. He determined the place of trade unions, their powers in regulating hiring and firing, wages, etc. The Code replaced social insurance with social security from state funds.
State provision pensions and disability pay has become important social law, which, after the emergency period of the civil war, was strictly observed throughout the existence of the Soviet state.
Family law. In the Soviet state, family law for the first time began to form as an independent branch, previously it was part of civil law.
Already in December 1917, two decrees were issued: "On civil marriage", "On children and on the maintenance of books of acts of civil status" and "On the dissolution of marriage."
A monogamous form of marriage was established, voluntary marriage was established, and many previous restrictions were abolished. For marriage, the consent of parents, superiors was not required, belonging to a class, religion, nationality did not affect.
Illegitimate children were equated with married ones in terms of rights and obligations both in relation to parents to children, and children to parents. The parents of the child were recorded by the persons who filed this application. A judicial procedure for establishing paternity was allowed.
A free divorce was introduced at the request of one or both spouses (with mutual consent - without trial, directly in the registry office). With whom the minor children remain, how the duties of the spouses for their upbringing and maintenance are distributed, the court decided.
On September 16, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted Code of Laws on Civil Status, Marriage, Family and Guardianship Law- the first code in Soviet law. It notes that church marriages concluded before December 20, 1917 had the force of registered marriages. However, a marriage performed after the revolution according to religious rites did not give rise to any rights and obligations if it was not registered in the registry office.
Marriage did not create a community of property of the spouses. Spouses could enter into all property-contractual relations permitted by law. A needy (i.e., without a living wage and unable to work) spouse was entitled to support from the other spouse if the latter was able to support him.
Interested parties were given the right to prove or challenge paternity in court. The court, which recognized paternity, determined the participation of the father in the costs associated with pregnancy, childbirth, the birth and maintenance of the child. If the mother was in close relations with several persons at the same time, the court imposed on all of them the obligation to participate in the above expenses.
It was written in the Code that parental rights are exercised exclusively in the interests of children, and if this was not done, the court was given the right to deprive parents of these rights. Parents were obliged to take care of underage children, their upbringing and preparation for useful activities. Parents were obliged to support minors, disabled and needy children, and those, in turn, were obliged to support disabled and needy parents if they did not receive maintenance from the state.
The Code did not allow the adoption of either one's own or other people's children, fearing their exploitation by the adoptive parents. The implementation of this Code in a multinational country was a difficult task, especially in the Muslim regions of the RSFSR. For example, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic only on December 20, 1920 adopted a decree on the prohibition of kalym.
Customs law. As noted above, on December 29, 1917, V.I. Lenin signed the decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On Permits for the Import and Export of Goods", according to which control functions over the transport of goods began to be of paramount importance in the activities of the customs authorities.
Permits for the import and export of goods began to be issued exclusively by the Department of Foreign Trade and Industry of the Commissariat of Trade and Industry, the export and import of goods without such destruction was recognized as smuggling. This decree set before the customs authorities the task of combating smuggling, which for the first time was recognized as a dangerous crime.
This decree was put into effect on January 1 (January 14), 1918. All previously issued documents for import and export were considered invalid.
On April 22, 1918, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the nationalization of foreign trade" was adopted. According to the Decree, trade transactions with foreign states and individual enterprises abroad were carried out by authorized representatives on behalf of the Russian Republic. Any other trading operations abroad were forbidden.
Solving customs issues in foreign trade legislated by the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918. The right to conclude customs and trade agreements was assigned to the jurisdiction of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
This is how customs law began to take shape. Soviet Russia.
Criminal law. The first act of the new state in the field of criminal law was the resolution of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets “On the abolition of the death penalty”.
In fact, starting from February 1918, the Cheka used the death penalty. In June 1918, the revolutionary tribunal sentenced Admiral A. Shchasny to death, accused of trying to surrender the Baltic Fleet to the Germans. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries sharply protested against this verdict. It is noteworthy that, being supporters of terror and extrajudicial executions in the Cheka, they rejected the court verdict as "the revival of bourgeois statehood."
On June 16, 1918, a resolution of the NKJ was issued, giving the revolutionary tribunals the right to apply capital punishment.
By April 1918, 17 criminal law decrees and 15 acts on individual crimes were adopted, by the end of July 1918, 40 and 69, respectively.
The legal acts include the manuals and instructions of the NKJ for revolutionary tribunals. They created the norms of the Special Part of Criminal Law in relation to cases within the jurisdiction of the tribunals. October 6, 1918
The cassation department at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee systematized these norms. An attempt was made to formulate the elements of crimes referred by law to the competence of the tribunals, to reveal the content of the concept counterrevolutionary activities.
The list of acts falling under this category was very wide and unequal (from counter-revolutionary actions aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government, to threats against officials of Soviet or economic bodies).
A feature of the legal acts of this period is the ability to bring provocateurs, informers or other employees of the old regime, whose activities before the establishment of Soviet power were recognized as harmful to the revolution, to the court of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
However, this each time required a special resolution of the local Council or executive committee, formally in this part the law was given reverse force - something unacceptable by the standards of the modern state. In fact, it was rather a preventive measure in order to neutralize a potential enemy.
In 1919, the NKJ, having summarized the legislation and judicial practice of general courts and revolutionary tribunals, issued an act on the General Part of Criminal Law: Guidelines for the criminal law of the RSFSR.
The guiding principles give a general definition of law and criminal law in class phraseology. Thus, the task of Soviet criminal law is to protect, through repression, a system of social relations that corresponds to the interests of the working masses.
The document included eight sections: on criminal law, on criminal justice, on crime and punishment, on the stages of a crime, on complicity, on types of punishment, on probation, on the scope of criminal law.
In general, if we ignore the ideological (“class”) coloring, the basic principles of the Guiding Principles are quite consistent with the ideas about crime and punishment that have developed in modern times in civil society, and not in traditional law.
A crime was defined as a violation public relations, and punishment as a measure by which the authorities protect this order public relations. That is, the purpose of punishment was defined as community protection from future possible crimes, both of this person and other persons, i.e. as a general warning task - not as revenge,"liquidating" the crime.
In determining the punishment, the court had to assess the danger to society identity of the perpetrator and not just what he did.
Thus, from the very beginning of Soviet criminal law, the possibility of preventive punishments was allowed - before the commission of crimes.
The signs by which it was possible to predict the likelihood of acts dangerous to society were class. Thus, all criminal law was implicitly divided into two completely different sections. There were "ordinary" crimes, for which humane methods of education and correction could be applied, and "counter-revolutionary" crimes, which had to be punished and suppressed by the most extreme measures. So, from the very first steps, the category of “state crimes” began to stand out, which was formalized later.
At the same time, “class” discrimination against criminals arose. It was believed that even a proletarian and a peasant could commit common crimes, while state crimes could be committed by a “class enemy”, even if disguised as a worker. Based on these categories, both the system of courts and the process were built. The circumstances that the court had to take into account were listed. For example, the revolutionary tribunal found out whether the offender belongs to the propertied class, whether the crime was aimed at restoring, maintaining or acquiring any privilege associated with property, or whether it was committed by the poor in a state of hunger and need, etc.
Criminal liability came from the age of 14. In a special section, exemplary types of punishments suggestion, public censure, boycott, compensation for damages, removal from office, prohibition to hold one position or another, confiscation of property or part of it, deprivation of political rights, declaration of an enemy of the revolution or the people, forced labor without placement in places of deprivation of liberty, deprivation of liberty for certain period or for an indefinite period until the onset of a well-known event, outlawing, execution (only by a verdict of a revolutionary tribunal).
It was envisaged probation who committed a crime for the first time in a difficult confluence of circumstances of his life, when the security of society does not require his isolation.
Note that Soviet criminal law from the very beginning included forced labor among the most important forms of punishment. Decree of the People's Commissariat of Justice of July 23, 1918 established that imprisonment always involves forced labor. The same decree established “insulators special purpose” - for prisoners guilty of disciplinary violations, “incorrigible” (potentially all class enemies were considered “incorrigible” for the duration of the emergency period).
The criminal law of the RSFSR applied both to Russian citizens and foreigners who committed crimes on its territory, as well as to those who committed crimes on the territory of another state, but evaded court at the scene of the crime and were within the RSFSR.
Modern researchers note that the Guiding Principles played a big role in improving the activities of the judiciary, in the development of criminal law, and were an important step towards the creation of the Criminal Code.
Thus, the Soviet state and law arose as a result of the October Revolution, which was caused by certain objective and subjective factors. It led to a radical breakdown of social relations. Russian society has taken a course towards building socialism, i.e. a social system based on the socialization of the means of production, a planned economy, the exclusion of private property, market relations and the exploitation of man by man.
The revolution led to the demolition of the former and the creation of a fundamentally new state mechanism, the basis of which was the Soviets of Workers', Peasants', Red Army and Cossack Deputies.
The emergence of a new state also predetermined the emergence of the corresponding law. Its branches began to take shape, creating together a new legal system. A definite milestone in the process of legal construction was the adoption of the Constitution of the RSFSR of 1918, which became not only the first Soviet, but also the first in the history of Russia.
With the victory of the revolution and the creation of the Soviet state, those sections of Russian society and foreign countries who lost a lot as a result of these events, which predetermined the beginning of the civil war and foreign military intervention.
Lecture 12. SOVIET STATE AND LAW DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION (1918-1921).
Causes and background of the Civil War and foreign military intervention
(1918-1922). Creation and development of the system of emergency bodies of Soviet power. Judicial system. Development of alternative statehood projects on the territory of Russia.
Causes and preconditions of the Civil War and foreign military intervention (1918-1920). The civil war in Russia is more complicated than the contradictions between workers and capitalists, peasants and landowners. It included the struggle of socialist, anarchist, bourgeois-democratic, reactionary-monarchist forces, centrifugal and centripetal tendencies, national and political currents.
Unlike conventional wars, civil war has no clear boundaries - neither temporal nor spatial. It is difficult to set a specific date for its start, to clearly draw a front line.
Applying the principles of a civilizational approach to the knowledge of history, it should be noted that civil wars have been known in history since ancient times. There is a general judgment that a civil war is a war between citizens of one state or the most acute form class struggle (V.I. Lenin). At the same time, civil wars, for example, in England (XVII century), in the USA (1861-1865), in Spain (30s of the XX century), in the presence of some common features had their own characteristics, the opposing forces, their correlation, their goals were completely different.
In this regard, we can agree with the definition of the civil war in Russia in 1917-1922 given by academician Yu.A. Polyakov: “The civil war in Russia is an armed confrontation that lasted about 6 years between times
Establishment of Soviet power
October Revolution of 1917 in Russia
Great October Socialist Revolution took place October 25-26, 1917 ᴦ.(November 7-8, new style). This is one of greatest events in the history of Russia, as a result of which there were cardinal changes in the position of all classes of society.
The October Revolution began as a result of a series of weighty reasons:
· In 1914-1918. Russia was involved in the First World War, the situation at the front was not the best, there was no sensible leader, the army suffered heavy losses. In industry, the growth of military products prevailed over consumer products, which led to an increase in prices and caused discontent among the masses. The soldiers and peasants wanted peace, and the bourgeoisie, who profited from the supply of military equipment, longed for the continuation of hostilities.
· National conflicts.
The intensity of the class struggle. The peasants, who for centuries dreamed of getting rid of the oppression of the landowners and kulaks and taking possession of the land, were ready for decisive action.
· The prevalence of socialist ideas in society.
The Bolshevik Party achieved tremendous influence over the masses. In October, there were already 400,000 people on their side. October 16, 1917 ᴦ. The Military Revolutionary Committee was created, which began preparations for an armed uprising. During the revolution by October 25, 1917 ᴦ. all key points in the city were occupied by the Bolsheviks, led by V.I. Lenin. Οʜᴎ take over Winter Palace and arrest the provisional government.
On the evening of October 25, at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, it was announced that power was transferred to the 2nd Congress of Soviets, and in the localities - to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
On October 26, the Decree on Peace and Land was adopted. At the congress, a Soviet government was formed, called the ʼʼCouncil of People's Commissarsʼʼ, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ included: Lenin himself (chairman), L.D. Trotsky (People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs), I.V. Stalin (People's Commissar for National Affairs). The ʼʼDeclaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russiaʼʼ was introduced, which stated that all people have equal rights to freedom and development, there is no longer a nation of masters and a nation of oppressed.
As a result of the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks won, and the dictatorship of the proletariat was established. The class society was liquidated, the landlords' land was transferred into the hands of the peasants, and industrial facilities: factories, factories, mines - into the hands of the workers.
As a result of the October Revolution, the Civil War began, due to which millions of people died, and emigration to other countries began. The Great October Revolution influenced the subsequent course of world history.
From October to February 1917 ᴦ. the establishment of Soviet power on the territory of the former Russian Empire began.
On October 25, the 2nd Congress of Soviets adopted a decree on power, according to which it passed to the soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies.
On October 27, a resolution was adopted on the creation of a temporary (until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly) Soviet government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK), Bolsheviks (62) and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (29) entered ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ. It was headed by Lenin. In all areas (economy, culture, education, etc.), people's commissariats were created (more than 20).
The Congress of Soviets became the supreme legislative body. In between congresses, its functions were performed by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), which was headed by L.B. Kamenev, a. then Ya.M. Sverdlov.
Elections to the Constituent Assembly held in November 1917 ᴦ. showed that 76% of voters do not support the Bolsheviks. Οʜᴎ voted for the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Cadets, who are pursuing a course towards the establishment of bourgeois democracy. At the same time, the Bolsheviks were supported by large cities, industrial centers, as well as soldiers.
In January 1917 ᴦ. The Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly, banned the Cadets and the publication of opposition newspapers.
In December 1918 ᴦ. the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) for the fight against counter-revolution, speculation and sabotage and its local departments in the regions are being created.
The Cheka, headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky, had unlimited powers (up to execution) and played a huge role in establishing Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In January 1918 ᴦ. ʼʼDecree on the organization of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army and Navyʼʼ was adopted. Created on a voluntary basis from representatives of the working people, the army was intended to protect the gains of the proletariat.
In May 1918 ᴦ. in connection with the danger of intervention, the ʼʼDecree on universal military dutyʼʼ was adopted. By November 1918 ᴦ. L. Trotsky managed to create a regular combat-ready army, and by 1921 ᴦ. its number reached 4 million people.
Using agitational and violent methods (the whole family was taken hostage for refusing to cooperate with the Red Army), the Bolsheviks managed to attract more military specialists from the old tsarist army to their side than the whites.
After the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the signing of the shameful Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, the socio-political situation in the country worsened. Protests began against the Bolsheviks: the rebellion of the junkers in Petrograd, the creation of the Volunteer Army on the Don, the beginning of the White movement, the unrest of the peasants in central Russia.
The most acute problem facing the new government was the way out of the war. L. Trotsky disrupted the first negotiations. Taking advantage of this, the German troops launched an offensive along the entire front line and, without meeting resistance, occupied Minsk, Polotsk, Orsha, Tallinn and many other territories. The front collapsed, and the army was unable to resist even the insignificant forces of the Germans.
February 23, 1918 ᴦ. Lenin achieved the acceptance of the German ultimatum, and signed an "obscene" peace with Germany's colossal territorial and material claims.
Having received a respite, having suffered huge losses for the sake of preserving the gains of the revolution, the Soviet Republic began transformations in the economy.
In December 1917 ᴦ. organized Supreme Council National Economy (VSNKh), the nationalization of the largest banks, enterprises, transport, trade, etc.
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State-owned enterprises became the basis of the socialist structure in the economy.
July 4, 1918 ᴦ. The 5th Congress of Soviets adopted the first Soviet constitution, which proclaimed the creation of a state - the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.
The establishment of Soviet power - the concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Establishment of Soviet power" 2017, 2018.
The transformation of the Soviet Republic into a single military camp. Military pressure on Soviet Russia already in the spring of 1918 set the task of creating a large, combat-ready Red Army, but it was not easy to do this quickly. January 15, 1918 Lenin signed a decree on ... .
At the Second Congress of Soviets, which opened in Smolny on the evening of October 25 (out of 650 delegates, 390 Bolsheviks and 150 Left Socialist-Revolutionaries), after the failure of an attempt to avoid bloodshed and create a general democratic or homogeneous socialist government, Y. Martov and those who stood behind him ....
HODZ AFTER THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION At the end of Oct. 1917 Soviet power was established in Russia. In the spring of 1918, the Kuban workers, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, took power into their own hands. In uniting the revolutionary forces of the Adyghe people with the Russians, a decisive role ... .
Liberation of Crimea The fate of our prisoners of war in Poland turned out to be horrendous. The concentration camps were invented not by the German fascists, and not by the NKVD in the famous Gulag (as our enemies claim). Concentration camps, like factories of death, were "invented" by the Polish panship. About 50... .
Key dates and events: October 25 - armed uprising in Petrograd, the beginning of the work of the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets; October 26 - the adoption of the Decree on Peace, the Decree on Land, the formation of the Council of People's Commissars headed by V.I. Lenin; October 25, 1917 - March 1918 - the establishment of Soviet power ... .
October events of 1917: the overthrow of the Provisional Government, the II Congress of Soviets By the autumn of 1917, a nationwide socio-political crisis broke out in the country: a catastrophic drop in the standard of living of the population, widespread dissatisfaction with government policy, strengthening ....
On the morning of October 24, 1917, in response to the destruction by the Junkers of the printing house where Rabochy Put was printed, the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks and the Military Revolutionary Committee took measures to defend and neutralize parts of the Provisional Government. Already on the afternoon of October 24, the troops of the Military Revolutionary Committee begin to crowd out the almost unresisting ....
a) The October armed uprising and the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets and its decrees After the rejection of the compromise proposed by the Bolsheviks in early September and the failure of the attempt to form a homogeneous socialist government during the Democratic ... .
The inability of the Provisional Government to solve the problems of the democratic revolution, the inconsistent policy of the ruling parties led them to political bankruptcy. In this situation, on the night of October 24-25, 1917, an armed uprising of workers and ... was victorious in Petrograd.
Established in most of the country. This happened in a fairly short time - until March 1918. In most provincial and other large cities, the establishment of Soviet power passed peacefully. In the article we will consider how this happened.
First of all, the victory of the revolutionary forces was consolidated in the Central region. The active army at the front-line congresses determined further events. It was here that Soviet power began to assert itself. 1917 was quite bloody. The main role in supporting the revolution in the Baltic States and Petrograd belonged to the Baltic Fleet. By November 1917, the Black Sea sailors overcame the resistance of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and adopted a resolution according to which the Council of People's Commissars, headed by V. I. Lenin, was recognized. At the same time, in the Far East and in the North of the country, the Soviet government did not receive much support. This subsequently contributed to the beginning of the intervention in these areas.
Cossacks
It put up a lot of resistance. On the Don, the core of the army of volunteers was formed and the center of the whites was created. The leaders of the Cadets and Octobrists Milyukov and Struve, as well as the Socialist-Revolutionary Savinkov, took part in the latter. They worked out They advocated the indivisibility of Russia, as well as the liberation of the country from the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks. "White Movement" short time received the support of French, British and American diplomatic representatives, as well as the Ukrainian Rada. The offensive of the volunteer army began in January 1918. The White Guards acted on the orders of Kornilov, who forbade the taking of prisoners. It was from this that the "white terror" began.
The victory of the Red Guards on the Don
In the tenth of January 1918, at the Cossack front-line congress, supporters of the Soviet government formed a military revolutionary committee. F. G. Podtelkov became its head. Most of the Cossacks followed him. At the same time, detachments of the Red Guards were sent to the Don, who immediately went on the offensive. The White Cossack troops had to retreat to the Salsky steppes. The volunteer army withdrew to the Kuban. On March 23, the Soviet Don Republic was created.
Orenburg Cossacks
It was headed by Ataman Dutov. In early November, he disarmed the Orenburg Soviet, and mobilization was announced. After that, Dutov, along with Kazakh and Bashkir nationalists, moved to Verkhneuralsk and Chelyabinsk. From that moment, the connection between Moscow and Petrograd with Central Asia and the southern territory of Siberia was interrupted. By decision of the Soviet government, detachments of Red Guards from the Urals, Ufa, Samara, and Petrograd were sent against Dutov. They were supported by groups of the Kazakh, Tatar and Bashkir poor. At the end of February 1918, Dutov's army was defeated.
Confrontation in national areas
In these territories, the Soviet government fought not only with the Provisional Government. The revolutionary forces tried to suppress the resistance of both the Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik forces and the nationalist bourgeoisie. In October-November 1917, the Soviet government won a victory in Estonia, the unoccupied regions of Belarus and Latvia. The resistance in Baku was also suppressed. Here, Soviet power lasted until August 1918. The rest of Transcaucasia came under the influence of the separatists. So, in Georgia, power was in the hands of the Mensheviks, in Armenia and Azerbaijan - the Musavatists and Dashnaks (petty-bourgeois parties). By May 1918, bourgeois-democratic republics were formed in these territories.
Changes have also taken place in Ukraine. So, in Kharkov in December 1917, the Soviet Ukrainian Republic was proclaimed. The revolutionary forces succeeded in overthrowing the Central Rada. She, in turn, announced the formation of a people's independent republic. After leaving Kiev, the Rada settled in Zhytomyr. There she was under the protection of German troops. By March 1918, Soviet power had established itself in Central Asia and Crimea, except for the Khanate of Khiva.
Political struggle in the central regions
Despite the fact that in the first years of Soviet power, volunteer and rebel armies were defeated in the main regions of the country, the confrontation in the center still continued. The culmination of the political struggle was the convocation of the Third Congress and the Constituent Assembly. A provisional government of the Soviets was formed. It was to be valid until the Constituent Assembly. With him, the broad masses associated the formation of a new system in the state on a democratic basis. At the same time, opponents of the power of the Soviets also pinned their hopes on the Constituent Assembly. It was beneficial for the Bolsheviks, since their consent would destroy the political foundation of the militias.
After Romanov abdicated, the form of government in the country was to be determined by the Constituent Assembly. However, the Provisional Government postponed its convocation. It tried to find a replacement for the Assembly by creating the Democratic and State Conferences, the Pre-Parliament. All this was due to the uncertainty of the Cadets in obtaining a majority of votes. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, meanwhile, were satisfied with their positions in the Provisional Government. However, after the Revolution, they also began to seek the convocation of a Constituent Assembly in the hope of seizing power.
Elections
Their deadlines were set as early as November 12 by the Provisional Government. The date for the meeting was set for January 5, 1918. By that time, the Soviet government included 2 parties - the Left Social Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks. The former emerged as an independent association at the First Congress. Voting was based on party lists. The composition of the Constituent Assembly elected democratically from the entire population of the country is very indicative. The lists were compiled even before the start of the revolution. The members of the Constituent Assembly were:
- Socialist-Revolutionaries (52.5%) - 370 seats.
- Bolsheviks (24.5%) - 175.
- Left SRs (5.7%) - 40.
- Cadets - 17 seats.
- Mensheviks (2.1%) - 15.
- Enes (0.3%) - 2.
- Representatives from various national associations - 86 seats.
The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had formed a new party by the time of the elections, participated in the elections on the basis of a single list drawn up before the revolution. The Right SRs included a large number of their representatives in them. From the above figures, it becomes clear that the population of the country gave preference to the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries - socialist associations, the number of representatives of which in the Constituent Assembly was more than 86%. Thus, the citizens of Russia quite unambiguously indicated the choice of the future path. With this, Chernov, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, began his speech at the opening of the Constituent Assembly. The assessment of this figure quite clearly illustrates the historical reality, refuting the words of a number of historians that the population rejected the socialist path.
Meeting
At the Constituent Assembly, either the chosen path of development at the Second Congress, the Decrees on Land and Peace, the activities of the Soviet government, or attempts to eliminate its gains could be approved. The opposing forces, which had a majority in the assembly, refused to compromise. At a meeting on January 5, the Bolshevik program was rejected, the activity of the government of the Soviets was not approved. In that situation, there was a threat of a return to the SR-bourgeois regime. In response to the Bolsheviks, and after it, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries left the meeting. The rest of its members stayed until five in the morning. There were 160 delegates out of 705 in the hall. At 5 am, the anarchist sailor Zheleznyakov, head of security, approached Chernov and said: "The guard is tired!" This phrase has gone down in history. Chernov announced that the meeting was adjourned to the next day. However, already on January 6, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a Decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly. The situation could not be changed by the demonstrations that were organized by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. Not without casualties in Moscow and Petrograd. These events marked the beginning of a split in the socialist parties into two opposing camps.
Completion of the confrontation
The final decision regarding the Constituent Assembly and the further state structure of the country was made at the Third Congress. On January 10, a meeting of soldiers' deputies and workers was convened. On the 13th, the All-Russian Congress of Peasant Representatives joined him. From that moment began its countdown years of Soviet power.
Finally
At the congress, both the policy and the activities carried out by the Soviet authorities - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, and the dissolution of the assembly were approved. Also at the meeting, constitutional acts were approved that legitimized Soviet power. Among the most important of them - the Declaration "On the Rights of the Workers and the Exploited People", "On the Federal Institutions of the Republic", as well as the Law on the Provisional Government of Workers and Peasants was renamed the Council of People's Commissars. Before that, the Declaration on the Rights of the Russian Peoples was adopted. In addition, the Council of People's Commissars addressed the working Muslims in the East and in Russia. They, in turn, proclaimed the rights and freedoms of citizens and enlisted the workers of various nationalities in the common cause of establishing socialism. In 1921, Soviet coins began to be minted.
First Decrees. The main task of the Bolsheviks from the first days of coming to power was the demolition of the old social structures and the strengthening of their own power.
On the evening of October 25, the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened in Smolny. Of the 670 congress delegates, more than half were Bolsheviks, about 100 mandates belonged to the left wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which supported the Bolshevik idea of an armed uprising. The Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries sharply condemned the actions of the Bolsheviks and demanded that the congress begin negotiations with the Provisional Government on the formation of a new cabinet of ministers based on all sectors of society. Not having received the approval of the congress, the Menshevik and Right Social Revolutionary factions left the meeting. Thus, they deprived themselves of the opportunity to take part in the formation of new authorities, and hence the opportunity to correct the actions of the Bolsheviks "from within". The Left SRs initially also did not accept the proposal of the Bolsheviks to enter the government. They were afraid of a final break with their party, hoping that in the future a coalition government would nevertheless be formed from representatives of the socialist parties.
Taking into account the sad experience of the Provisional Government, which lost its credibility due to its unwillingness to solve the main problems of the revolution, Lenin immediately proposed to the Second Congress of Soviets to adopt decrees on peace, land and power.
The Decree on Peace proclaimed Russia's withdrawal from the war. The congress turned to all the belligerent governments and peoples with a proposal for a general democratic peace.
The Decree on Land was based on 242 local peasant mandates, which set out the peasants' ideas about agrarian reform. The peasants demanded the abolition of private ownership of land, the establishment of egalitarian land use with periodic redistribution of land. These demands were never put forward by the Bolsheviks, they were an integral part of the Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian program. But Lenin was well aware that without the support of the peasantry, it would hardly be possible to retain power in the country. Therefore, he intercepted their agrarian program from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. And the peasants followed the Bolsheviks.
The Decree on Power proclaimed the universal transfer of power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. The congress elected a new composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK). It included 62 Bolsheviks and 29 Left Social Revolutionaries. A certain number of seats were also left to other socialist parties. Executive power was transferred to the interim government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) - headed by V.I. Lenin. During the discussion and adoption of each decree, it was emphasized that they were of a temporary nature - until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which would have to legislate the principles of the state structure.
On November 2, 1917, the Soviet government adopted the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia", which proclaimed the abolition of national oppression, the provision to the peoples of Russia of equality, complete freedom, self-determination, up to state secession. The Declaration formulated the most important provisions that determined the national policy of the Soviet government: the equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia, the right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, up to secession and the formation of an independent state, the abolition of all and any national and national-religious privileges and restrictions, the free development of national minorities and ethnic groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.
On November 20, 1917, the Soviet government issued an appeal "To all working Muslims of Russia and the East", in which it declared the beliefs and customs, national and cultural institutions of working Muslims free and inviolable.
On December 18, the civil rights of men and women were equalized. On January 23, 1918, a decree was issued on the separation of the church from the state and the school from the church.
Proclaiming their first decrees, the Bolsheviks sought to ensure their support by the most active part of the population. First of all, the youth came under party control. On October 29, 1918, the All-Russian Congress of the Unions of Workers' and Peasants' Youth announced the creation of the Russian Communist Youth Union (RKSM). Komsomol received the status of "assistant and reserve of the Communist Party." At the same time, back in December 1917, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) was created under the Council of People's Commissars to "combat counter-revolution, sabotage and profiteering" - the first punitive body of Soviet power. It was headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky.
Creation of a coalition Soviet government. The decrees of the new government were met with satisfaction by many sections of the population. They were supported by the All-Russian Congresses of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies and the Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
The support of the peasantry for the Bolshevik Decree on Land brought the right SRs to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and the left to the government. In November-December 1917, seven representatives of the Left SRs joined the Council of People's Commissars.
The position of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries finally split the socialist parties into two camps - supporters of the Soviets and adherents of parliamentary democracy. At the same time, V.I. Lenin fiercely resisted any attempts by individual Bolshevik leaders to expand the socialist coalition through some concessions to the Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries. He believed that the parliamentary, social democratic perspective was yesterday's revolution. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, in his opinion, already had a chance, being in the provisional government, to put into practice their program guidelines. However, they did not. Now it was the turn of the Bolsheviks.
The fate of the Constituent Assembly. Having stood in opposition to the Bolshevik government, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries for the time being did not attempt to overthrow it by force, since in the initial post-October period this path was unpromising due to the obvious popularity of Bolshevik slogans among the masses. The bet was made on an attempt to seize power by legal means - with the help of the Constituent Assembly.
The demand for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly appeared in the course of the first Russian revolution. It was included in the programs of almost all political parties. The Bolsheviks waged their campaign against the Provisional Government, among other things, under the slogan of defending the Constituent Assembly, accusing the government of delaying elections to it.
Having come to power, the Bolsheviks changed their attitude towards the Constituent Assembly, declaring that the Soviets were a more acceptable form of democracy under the prevailing conditions. But since the idea of the Constituent Assembly was very popular among the people, and besides, all parties had already put up their lists for elections, the Bolsheviks did not dare to cancel them.
The results of the elections deeply disappointed the Bolshevik leaders. 23.9% of voters voted for them, 40% voted for the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries prevailed in the lists. The Mensheviks received 2.3% and the Cadets 4.7% of the vote. The leaders of all major Russian and national parties, the entire liberal and democratic elite were elected members of the Constituent Assembly. With such a composition of deputies, it was difficult to wait for the obedient legislative consecration of a fait accompli - the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. The implicitly ripening decision grew into a firm conviction: the Constituent Assembly must be dispersed. The Left SRs supported this idea.
But some pre-emptive steps were taken first.
On November 28, 1917, Lenin signed a decree banning the Constitutional Democratic Party and arresting its leaders. Despite parliamentary immunity, some leaders of the right SRs were also arrested.
On January 3, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" written by V.I. Lenin. The Declaration recorded all the changes that had taken place since October 25, which were regarded as the basis for the subsequent socialist reorganization of society. It was decided to submit this document as the main one for adoption by the Constituent Assembly.
On January 5, the opening day of the Constituent Assembly, a demonstration was held in Petrograd in its defense, organized by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. According to eyewitnesses, 50-60 thousand people took part in it. The demonstration, on the orders of the authorities, was shot by units of the Latvian riflemen supporting the Bolsheviks.
The execution of the demonstration further inflamed the situation in the country, dispelling the last hopes for the possibility of a compromise between the socialist parties.
The Constituent Assembly opened and proceeded in a tense atmosphere of confrontation. The meeting room was filled with armed sailors, supporters of the Bolsheviks. Their behavior was far from the norms of parliamentary ethics. Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya.M. Sverdlov read out the "Declaration of the rights of the working and exploited people" and proposed to adopt it, thereby legitimizing the existence of Soviet power and its first decrees. But the Constituent Assembly refused to approve this document, starting a discussion on the draft laws on peace and land proposed by the Social Revolutionaries. On January 6, early in the morning, the Bolsheviks announced their resignation from the Constituent Assembly. Following them, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries also left the meeting. The discussion, which continued after the departure of the ruling parties, was interrupted late at night by the head of the guard, sailor A. Zheleznyakov, with the message that "the guard was tired." He urged the delegates to leave the premises.
The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, which took place so casually, without arousing the slightest hint of an outburst of popular indignation, made a stunning impression on the parties of revolutionary democracy. They associated with his activities certain hopes for a peaceful way to remove the Bolsheviks from power. Now they began to incline more and more to the need for an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks.
IIIAll-Russian Congress of Soviets: the formation of Soviet statehood. On January 10, 1918, the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' Soldiers' Deputies opened in the Tauride Palace, where the Constituent Assembly had recently met. Three days later he was joined by delegates of the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. Thus, the unification of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies into a single state system was completed. The United Congress adopted the "Declaration of the rights of the working and exploited people", Russia was proclaimed the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. supreme body The authorities were recognized by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in the intervals between congresses - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which was elected at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Executive power was assigned to the Council of People's Commissars. Representatives of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries took part in the work of the congress. They also entered the new composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
III Congress of Soviets adopted the "Basic Law on the Socialization of Land", which approved the principles of equal land use.
Separate peace or revolutionary war? One of the most difficult questions of Russian reality was the question of the war. The Bolsheviks promised the people its speedy completion. However, in the party itself there was no unity on this issue, since it was most closely connected with one of the fundamental provisions of the Bolshevik doctrine - with the idea of world revolution. The essence of this idea was that the victory of the socialist revolution in backward Russia could be ensured only if similar revolutions took place in the developed capitalist countries and the European proletariat assisted the Russian in eliminating backwardness and building a socialist society. Another idea flowed from the doctrine of the world revolution - the idea of a revolutionary war, with the help of which the victorious Russian proletariat would support the proletariat of other countries in fomenting war with their own bourgeoisie. At the same time, the main stake was placed on the German proletariat. Therefore, it was originally planned that the victorious Bolsheviks would offer all the warring powers to conclude a democratic peace, and in case of refusal they would begin revolutionary war with global capital.
On November 7, 1917, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Leonid Trotsky addressed the governments of all the warring powers with a proposal to conclude a general democratic peace. A few days later, the Soviet government again repeated its proposal, but only Germany agreed to start negotiations.
According to the logic of Bolshevik principles, it was time to start a revolutionary war. However, having become the head of state, V.I. Lenin dramatically changed his attitude to this issue. He urgently demanded the immediate conclusion of a separate peace with Germany, since in the conditions of the collapse of the army and the economic crisis, the German offensive threatened an imminent catastrophe for the country, and therefore for the Soviet government. At least a short respite was needed for economic stabilization and the creation of an army.
The proposal of Lenin and his few supporters was opposed by a group of prominent Bolsheviks, later called "Left Communists". Its leader was N.I. Bukharin. This group categorically insisted on the continuation of the revolutionary war, which was supposed to ignite the fire of the world revolution. Unlike Lenin, Bukharin saw the threat to Soviet power not in the offensive of the German army, but in the fact that hatred of the Bolsheviks would inevitably unite the warring Western powers for a joint campaign against Soviet power. And only the international revolutionary front will be able to resist the united imperialist front. The conclusion of peace with Germany will undoubtedly weaken the chances of a world revolution. Bukharin's position was supported by the Left SRs.
Compromise, but not devoid of logic, was the position of L.D. Trotsky, expressed by the formula: "We do not stop the war, we demobilize the army, but we do not sign peace." This approach was based on the belief that Germany was not capable of conducting major offensive operations and that the Bolsheviks did not need to discredit themselves by negotiations. Trotsky did not rule out the possibility of signing a separate peace, but only if the German offensive began. Under this condition, it will become clear to the international working-class movement that peace is a forced measure, and not the result of a Soviet-German agreement.
The split was not limited to the party elite, it also touched its ranks. Most of the party organizations were against the signing of peace. However, Lenin defended his position with incredible stubbornness.
L.D. Trotsky, who headed the Russian delegation, dragged out negotiations with the Germans in every possible way, believing that they had put forward territorial claims unacceptable to Russia. On the evening of January 28, 1918, the Soviet delegation announced the break in negotiations.
On February 18, the Germans launched an offensive on the Eastern Front and, without encountering serious resistance from the Russian troops, began to move inland.
On February 23, the Soviet government received a German ultimatum. The terms of the peace proposed in it were much harder than before. With incredible difficulty, only with the help of the threat of his resignation, Lenin managed to persuade the insignificant majority of the Central Committee of the party, and then the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, to adopt a resolution on the signing of the treaty on German terms.
On March 3, 1918, a separate peace treaty between Russia and Germany was signed in Brest-Litovsk.
Under the terms of the Brest Peace, a territory with a total area of 780 thousand km 2 with a population of 56 million people (almost a third of the population of the Russian Empire) was torn away from Russia. These are Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, part of Belarus, Ukraine, some regions of Transcaucasia. Before the revolution, there was 27% of cultivated land, 26% of the railway network, 38% of the textile industry, 73% of iron and steel were smelted, 89% of coal was mined, 90% of the sugar industry was located, 1073 machine-building plants and, most importantly, 40% of industrial workers lived.
Huge material losses provoked the introduction of emergency measures in the economy.
Economic policy of the new government. Economic ties between town and country in the first half of Soviet power were built according to the scheme inherited by the Bolsheviks from the Provisional Government. While maintaining the grain monopoly and fixed prices, the Soviet government received grain through barter. The People's Commissar for Food had at his disposal items of industrial production and, under certain conditions, sent them to the village, thereby stimulating the delivery of grain.
However, in conditions of all-encompassing instability, the lack of necessary industrial goods, the peasants were in no hurry to give bread to the government. In addition, in the spring of 1918, the grain regions of Ukraine, the Kuban, the Volga region, and Siberia were cut off from Soviet power. The threat of famine loomed over Soviet territory. At the end of April 1918, the daily bread ration in Petrograd was reduced to 50 g. In Moscow, workers received an average of 100 g per day. Food riots began in the country.
The enemy was found without delay - speculators and kulaks hiding their reserves from the state. On May 9, 1918, a decree was adopted "On granting emergency powers to the People's Commissar for Food to combat the rural bourgeoisie, who hide grain stocks and speculate with them." On the basis of this decree, the Bolsheviks switched from a policy of barter between town and country to a policy of forcibly seizing all "surplus" food and centralizing it in the hands of the People's Commissariat of Food. To accomplish this task, armed work detachments were created throughout the country - food detachments, endowed with emergency powers.
But the Bolsheviks feared that the "crusade" announced by the city to the countryside might cause a backlash - the unification of the entire peasantry for an organized grain blockade. Therefore, stakes were placed on splitting the countryside, on opposing the rural poor to all other peasants. This situation was foreseen by V.I. Lenin as far back as 1905. Then, in his work “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in a Democratic Revolution”, he wrote about two stages of the revolution in the countryside. At the first stage, the proletariat, together with the entire peasantry, will abolish feudal landownership, and then at the second stage, in alliance with the poorest peasantry, it will oppose the rural bourgeoisie.
On June 11, 1918, despite the violent objections of the Left SRs, a decree was issued on the formation of committees of the rural poor. Kombeds were entrusted with the function of assisting local food authorities in detecting and seizing grain surpluses from "kulaks and the rich." For their services, the “committees” received remuneration in the form of a certain share of the grain seized by them. The duties of the commanders also included the distribution of bread, basic necessities and agricultural implements between peasant households.
This decree played the role of an exploding bomb in the countryside. He destroyed all the centuries-old foundations, traditions and moral guidelines of the Russian peasantry, sowed enmity and hatred among fellow villagers, thereby fanning the flames of civil war.
Having come to power, the Bolsheviks had two fundamental ideas in their economic baggage: the introduction of workers' control over the production and distribution of products and the need to nationalize all the country's banks and merge them into a single nationwide bank.
On November 14, 1917, a decree and the "Regulations on workers' control" were adopted. The nationalization of private banks in Petrograd began, and banking was declared a state monopoly. A single people's bank of the Russian Republic was created.
On November 17, 1917, the factory of the Likinskaya Manufactory Association (near Orekhovo-Zuev) was nationalized by decree of the Council of People's Commissars. In December 1917, several enterprises in the Urals and the Putilov plant in Petrograd were nationalized. However, initially nationalization was not as a tool for creating a socialist economy, but as a state response to hostile steps on the part of entrepreneurs. Moreover, it was carried out exclusively in relation to individual enterprises, and not to the industry, especially to the industry as a whole, i.e. it was dictated not by economic expediency, but by political motives.
The first results of the economic policy of the new government were deplorable. The revolution inspired the workers with the idea that they are the masters of production and can manage it in their own interests and at their own discretion. The idea of workers' control discredited itself, relegating industry into unimaginable chaos and anarchy. This was also reflected in agriculture: there are no necessary industrial goods - the peasants hide their grain. Hence the famine in the cities, the threat to the existence of the new government.
In early April 1918, V.I. Lenin announced his decision to change the internal political course. His plan called for an end to nationalization and expropriation and the preservation of private capital. According to Lenin, in order to stabilize Soviet power, it was necessary to begin technical cooperation with the big bourgeoisie, restore the authority of the administration at enterprises, and introduce strict labor discipline based on material incentives. Lenin suggested that bourgeois specialists be widely involved in cooperation and was ready to abandon the Marxist principle of equal pay for worker and official. The mixed economic order he conceived was called state capitalism.
However, this new Leninist course did not receive its practical development. The introduction of emergency measures in the agricultural sector required adequate solutions in other sectors of the economy. The Congress of Soviets of the National Economy, which met in May 1918 in Moscow, rejected both state capitalism and workers' control, proclaiming a course towards the nationalization of the most important branches of industry. This course was enshrined in a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of June 28, 1918. The functions of managing nationalized enterprises were transferred to the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which was created in December 1917 to coordinate and unify the activities of all economic bodies and institutions, both central and local .
In this way, economic policy The new, Bolshevik government in the first period of its existence went from "socialization of the land" and "workers' control" to food dictatorship, committees, wide nationalization and strict centralization.
Inner Russia, with its industrial and political centers, was the base of the revolution. In the period from October 25 to 31 (November 7 - 13), the power of the Soviets extended to 15 provincial centers, and by the end of November - to all the most important industrial centers and the main fronts of the army in the field.
The procession of the new government caused a mixed reaction among various segments of the population. I. Bunin in "Cursed Days" wrote about the first days of Soviet power: "That's right, the Sabbath. But in the depths of my soul I still hoped for something, and still did not believe in the complete absence of the government.
However, it was impossible not to believe.
I felt this especially vividly in Petersburg: in our thousand-year-old and huge house a great death has happened, and the house is now dissolved, wide open and full of an innumerable idle crowd, for which there is nothing sacred and forbidden in any of the chambers.
And among this crowd, the heirs of the deceased rushed about, crazy from worries, orders, which, however, no one listened to. The crowd staggered from rest to rest, from room to room, not for a moment ceasing to gnaw and chew sunflowers, for the time being only glancing, and for the time being silent.
The establishment of Soviet power was accompanied by conflicts and armed clashes. Pockets of active and passive resistance flared up everywhere.
Fierce opposition to the Soviets was rendered on the territory of Siberia and the Far East.
The Bolshevik parties of Siberia and the Far East created militant organizations and led an armed struggle for the seizure of political power. On October 29 (November 11) the power of the Soviets was established in Krasnoyarsk, on November 29 (December 12) - in Vladivostok, on November 30 (December 13) - in Omsk.
December 10 (23) III Regional Congress of Soviets Western Siberia, who met in Omsk, proclaimed the establishment of Soviet power throughout Western Siberia.
At the end of December 1917 in Irkutsk, an anti-Soviet uprising was suppressed. On December 6 (19), power passed to the Soviets in Khabarovsk. On December 14 (27), the regional congress of Soviets of the Far East, which met in Khabarovsk, adopted a declaration on the transfer of all power to the Soviets in the Amur and Amur regions.
The Siberian Regional Duma, which personified power in Siberia, was expelled from Tomsk.
On the Don, armed resistance to Soviet power was provided by the Cossacks, led by General Kaledin. Kaledin announced the insubordination of the Don Army to the Soviet government and established contact with Milyukov, Kornilov, Denikin, with the Cossacks of the Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, with the Cossack ataman Dutov in Orenburg. The governments of England, France, and the United States provided Kaledin with financial support.
US Secretary of State Lansing wrote in a report to President Wilson: “The most organized, capable of putting an end to Bolshevism and strangling the government, is the group of General Kaledin. Its defeat will mean the transfer of the entire country into the hands of the Bolsheviks. It is necessary to strengthen the hope among Kaledin's allies that they will receive moral and material assistance from our government if their movement becomes strong enough.
In November, Kaledin captured Rostov-on-Don, then Taganrog, and announced his decision to advance on Moscow.
The Council of People's Commissars sent detachments of Red Guards from Moscow, Petrograd and Donbass to fight against the troops of General Kaledin. The Bolsheviks launched active propaganda among the Cossacks. The result of this propaganda was the congress of Cossacks-front-line soldiers in the village of Kamenskaya. The congress recognized Soviet power, formed the Don Revolutionary Committee headed by the Cossack F. Podtelkov and declared war on General Kaledin.
Kaledin was attacked from the front and from the rear and committed suicide.
Soviet power was established on the Don after the troops of the Red Guard took Rostov on February 24, and Novocherkassk a week later.
While asserting local power, the Bolsheviks came into conflict with the national liberation forces of the peoples who inhabited the former Russian Empire. For example, in December 1917, the Bolsheviks dispersed the First All-Belarusian Congress of Political Forces in Minsk. The congress brought together 1872 delegates from all regions of Belarus, all public and political organizations, including representatives of provincial zemstvos, local governments, trade unions and cooperative associations. The delegates discussed the most important problems concerning the future of Belarus. The leaders of the Bolshevik Party, who at that time officially called Belarus the "Western Region", on the night of December 30-31, using military force, dispersed the congress. The warrant for the dissolution of Congress was signed by Lander. In Kiev, already on October 25 (November 7), the Bolsheviks demanded the immediate transfer of power into the hands of the Soviets. In response, representatives of the Provisional Government published an appeal calling for a struggle against Soviet power.
On October 27 (November 9), at a joint meeting of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee was created. The next day, representatives of the Kiev Military Revolutionary Committee were arrested. A new revolutionary committee was formed, which led the armed uprising in Kiev, which began on October 29 (November 11).
The Central Ukrainian Rada called Ukrainian regiments from the front, patriotic and anti-Bolshevik. They helped the Rada create a superiority in power and seize power in Kiev into their own hands. A significant part of the Ukrainian peasantry went over to the side of the Rada.
The Central Rada proclaimed its power in Ukraine, and on November 7 (20) published the Third Universal, in which it declared its disobedience to the Soviet government of Russia. The Rada concluded an agreement with the commander of the Romanian Front, General Shcherbachev, on the merger of the Romanian and Southwestern Fronts into a single Ukrainian Front under the command of Shcherbachev and entered into an alliance with Kaledin.
On October 4 (17), the Council of People's Commissars presented an ultimatum to the Central Rada demanding to stop "the disorganization of the front, not to allow counter-revolutionary units to enter the Don, to abandon the alliance with Kaledin, to return weapons to the revolutionary regiments and detachments of the Red Guard in Ukraine." In case of disobedience, the Soviet government considered the Rada to be in a state of open war with the Soviet government.
The Rada rejected the ultimatum and turned to the governments of the Entente countries for support.
On December 11 (24) the First Congress of Soviets of Ukraine opened in Kharkov. On December 12 (25), he proclaimed Soviet power in Ukraine, elected the Central Executive Committee and formed the Soviet government of Ukraine - the People's Secretariat.
The First Congress of Soviets of Ukraine announced the establishment of a close alliance with the Soviet government of Russia, which welcomed this decision and promised support in the fight against the Central Rada.
On January 16 (29), 1918, a new armed uprising began in Kiev. On January 26 (February 8), the Bolsheviks captured the city. The Central Rada was evacuated to Volyn.
Stubborn resistance to Soviet power was offered in Transcaucasia. On November 15 (28) the national parties - Georgian Mensheviks, Armenian Dashnaks and Azerbaijani Musavatists created their own body in Tbilisi - the Transcaucasian Commissariat. Soviet power in Transcaucasia was established only in 1920-1921.
In December 1917, the Cossack ataman Dutov raised an anti-Soviet uprising in the Orenburg region. He was supported by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Kazakh and Bashkir national forces. Dutov captured Orenburg, thereby cutting off Central Asia from Soviet Russia. There was a real threat of the fall of Soviet power in the industrial centers of the Urals and the Volga region.
The Soviet government hastily sent detachments of the Red Guard from Moscow and Petrograd to fight Dutov, who captured Orenburg on January 18 (31). Power in Orenburg was seized by the Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Cossacks' Deputies. Ataman Dutov with his adherents went to the Turgai steppe.
On October 31 (November 13), an armed uprising broke out in Tashkent, which led to the fall of power and the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government. At the regional Congress of Soviets held in Tashkent in mid-November, the Soviet government was formed - the Soviet People's Commissars Turkestan.
The struggle against Soviet power continued in Central Asia until March 1918. In March, the main forces and centers of national resistance in Central Asia (Kokand autonomy) and Kazakhstan (Alash Orda), as well as the Ural, Orenburg and Semirechensk White Cossacks, were defeated.
On October 24 (November 6), an armed uprising was organized in Reval (Tallinn). In the unoccupied part of the Baltic, the Bolsheviks launched a struggle to seize political power. On October 26 (November 8) the Military Revolutionary Committee published an appeal "On the Victory of the Revolution and the Establishment of Soviet Power in Estonia". In Latvia, in the city of Valk (Valga) on December 16-17 (29-30), under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, a congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Laborers' Deputies was held. The congress elected the first Soviet government.
Lenin called the period from October 25 (November 7), 1917 to February - March 1918. "triumphal procession" of Soviet power. In fact, this was the beginning of a long and bloody civil war.