Iran-Soviet Relations

Iran-Soviet Relations

Well before the 1920s one of Iran's greatest political obstacles was the imperial rivalry between Great Britain and Russia. Both imperial powers felt that Iran was of vital importance to their respective empires, and, spurred by economic interests, the British and the Russian czars followed by the Soviet government vied for influence and control over Iran.

During World War I Iran declared neutrality. When Britain and Russia became allies in the war against Germany, they secretly entered into the Constantinople Agreement, by which they would divide Iranian territory between themselves.

Denied representation at the Versailles Peace Conference following World War I, Iran faced postwar occupation by Britain not only in the south but also in the north after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian czarist monarchy and withdrew Russian military forces. Oil, protection of the route to India, and its postwar mandate over neighboring Iraq ensured Britain's continued interest in Iran.


In contrast, the Soviets renounced the czar's imperialistic policies and declared the Constantinople Agreement void. The Soviet regime then recognized Iran's right to selfdetermination and repudiated historic concessions made by former Iranian governments.

During this period Soviet foreign policy objectives varied. Soviet officials wished to establish friendly relations with bordering countries and to oppose Western domination in order to spread the communist revolution. To this end, Iran was of utmost importance, and the new Soviet policy effectively weakened British control over Iran.

Six days before the signing of the Iran-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, a coup led by Colonel Reza Khan overthrew the Iranian government. Khan's rise to power culminated with his accession as shah in 1925 and the founding of the Pahlavi dynasty. Khan's government initially instituted a wide variety of modernizing reforms. As Khan consolidated power his regime became less progressive and more dictatorial.

Relations with the Soviet Union were of considerable concern, particularly as the traditional power struggle between Great Britain and Russia had refashioned itself into a struggle between capitalism and communism. Iran had come to rely on Soviet trade, thus making it vulnerable to Soviet advances. In 1927 Khan negotiated an ad hoc agreement with the Soviets that sought a trade balance and defined terms for bilateral trade delegations.

Iran's relations with the Soviet Union were also complicated by territorial disputes involving the northern region and access to the Caspian Sea. On February 20, 1926, Khan negotiated a treaty attempting to resolve the dispute; the treaty created a joint territorial commission but granted it little power to effect decisions, and the territorial issues remained.

Iran also had problems with foreign interference, and on October 1, 1927, it signed a Treaty of Guarantee and Neutrality with the Soviet Union. The treaty was a nonaggression pact that assured that neither country would interfere in the other's internal operations.

For the Soviet Union the treaty allayed border security fears, but it caused discontent in Iran, which saw it as a continuation of historical external encroachment on its right to sovereignty. After World War II Iran would shift its alliance toward the United States in order to prevent Soviet expansion along the border.

First and Second Karakhan Declaration

Leo Karakhan

Immediately after the October Revolution in 1917 the Soviet government of Russia had focused its efforts on instigating revolutions in Europe, but with little success. After establishing the Third International in March 1919 in Moscow, one of whose divisions was in charge of promoting communist revolutions in Asia, China became a prime target of the world communist movement.

Leo Karakhan (1889–1937) was assistant foreign affairs commissar of the Soviet government. On July 25, 1919, he issued a declaration (which came to be known in retrospect as the first Karakhan Declaration) that offered to renounce the unequal treaties that the czarist government had forced on China and further payments by China of indemnity that resulted from the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.

This declaration sought to capitalize on widespread public anger among the Chinese about China's diplomatic defeat at the Paris Peace Conference earlier that year, blaming it on the arrogance of the Western powers and Japan. However, due to a breakdown of communications, the text of the declaration did not reach China until March 1920. Some Chinese intellectuals saw this declaration as a herald of good relations with the Soviet Union.


But it had no immediate effect because Great Britain, France, the United States, and Japan were hostile to the Soviets, and under their influence, China continued to recognize and support the defunct Russian provisional government. Additionally, the Chinese Eastern Railway had, since the Communist Revolution in Russia, been under the joint control of Britain, the United States, Japan, and China.

In September 1920, Karakhan made a second declaration, in which the Soviet government repeated its offers of the previous year, except that it would now negotiate joint control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. China withdrew recognition from the provisional government in September 1920. In 1921 the two governments began negotiations.

Several Soviet representatives came to China between 1921 and 1923 but failed to reach agreement, the stumbling block being control of the railway and the status of Mongolia. In July 1923, Karakhan was appointed chief Soviet negotiator to China; in May 1924, a Sino-Soviet Treaty was signed.

Chinese eastern railway

It was based on equality: The Soviet Union renounced extraterritorial rights in China, its concessions in several Chinese cities, and its share of the Boxer indemnity, but it retained control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Mongolia had already become a Soviet satellite state and was not mentioned in the treaty.

From the first Karakhan Declaration, when the weak Soviet government offered to return the privileges its predecessor had obtained, to the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1924, Soviet foreign policy toward China had hardened. This is because by 1924 the civil war had ended in Russia, and the Soviet government was in unchallenged control. It thus did not need to conciliate China. Leo Karakhan was executed by Stalin in the purge of 1937.

Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Kerensky played a key role in toppling the czarist monarchy immediately before Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks seized power in 1917.

Kerensky, the son of a headmaster, was born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), which was also Lenin's birthplace. Kerensky graduated in law from Saint Petersburg University in 1904. In 1905, Kerensky joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and became editor of a radical newspaper.

He was arrested and exiled but returned to Saint Petersburg in 1906 and worked as a lawyer, demonstrating his political sympathies by his frequent defense of accused revolutionaries. In 1912, he was elected to the duma, imperial Russia's central parliament, as a member of the Moderate Labor Party. He was nominated to the Provisional Committee as a leader of the opposition to Czar Nicholas II.


Unlike many radical socialist leaders, Kerensky supported Russia's entrance into World War I in 1914. However, he became more and more disappointed with the czar's unsuccessful conduct of the war. Kerensky was dismayed by the weakness of the czar's command of the Russian troops.

When the February Revolution broke out in 1917, Kerensky urged the removal of Nicholas II. To Kerensky's enthusiasm, he was elected vice chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. When the czar abdicated on March 13, the duma formed a provisional government.

Kerensky was appointed minister of justice and instituted a series of reforms, including civil liberties such as freedom of speech, assembly, and the press, as well as the abolition of ethnic and religious discrimination. He made plans for the introduction of universal suffrage. He became a widely known and popular figure among the revolutionary leaders.

Handed the war and navy ministry in May 1917, Kerensky was determined to ensure Russia's continued participation in the Allied war effort. He toured the front, where he made a series of inspiring speeches appealing to the demoralized troops to continue fighting. Kerensky subsequently planned a new offensive against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Encouraged by the Bolsheviks, there were mass demonstrations against Kerensky in Petrograd. The July 1 Offensive, also named the Kerensky Offensive, was an attack on the whole Galician sector of the front. Low morale, poor supply, and the arrival of German reserves quickly brought the advance to a halt.

As a consequence of that defeat, the provisional government was compelled to reorganize. Kerensky, whose rhetoric still seemed to win him popular support, became prime minister. His essential problem was that his country was exhausted after three years of warfare.

Kerensky, however, felt obliged by Russia's commitments to its allies to continue the war against the Central Powers. He also foresaw that Germany would demand vast territorial concessions as the price for peace. For those reasons, Kerensky decided to continue the war. Lenin and his Bolsheviks were promising "peace, land, and bread."

There was a rapid increase in the number of deserters: By the autumn of 1917, an estimated 2 million men had left the army. Many of these soldiers used their weapons to seize land from the nobility. Kerensky was powerless to stop the redistribution of land in the countryside.

Kerensky's refusal to end Russia's engagement in the war proved his undoing. He found himself increasingly isolated between the extreme revolutionaries on the left and those on the right. He forced Lenin to flee the country following the July Days demonstration and subsequently announced a postponement of constituent assembly elections until November.

Despite his efforts to unite the whole country, he alienated the moderate political factions as well as the officers' corps by dismissing the supreme commander, General Lavr Kornilov. In September, Kerensky took over his post personally.

When Kornilov started a revolt and marched on Petrograd, Kerensky was obliged to request assistance from Lenin and distribute weapons to the Petrograd workers. Most of these armed workers, however, soon sided with the Bolsheviks. Kerensky publicly declared a socialist republic on September 14 and released radical leaders from prison.

Lenin was determined to overthrow Kerensky's government before it could be legitimized by elections. Kerensky's fall was triggered by his decision on November 5 to arrest the leaders of the Bolshevik committee, which resulted only in bringing about their uprising. On November 7, the Bolsheviks seized power in what became known as the October Revolution.

Kerensky escaped from Petrograd and went to Pskov, where he rallied loyal troops for an attempt to retake the capital. His troops were defeated. Kerensky lived in hiding until he could leave the country in May 1918. Kerensky, then only 36 years old, spent the remainder of his long life in exile.

He lived in Paris, engaged in the quarrels of the exiled Russian leaders. When the Germans occupied France in 1940, he escaped to the United States. In 1939 he had married the Australian journalist Lydia Tritton. In 1945, Kerensky traveled with her to Australia and lived there until her death in 1946.

Thereafter, he returned to the United States and spent much of his time at Stanford University in California, where he used the Hoover Institution's archive on Russian history. He lectured at universities, wrote, and broadcast extensively on Russian politics and history as well as on his revolutionary experiences. When Kerensky died in 1970, he was the last surviving major participant in the events of 1917.

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Among the savviest and most single-minded politicians of the 20th century, Vladimir Lenin capitalized on the chaos in Russia caused by World War I and the resentments spawned by the advent of industrial capitalism.

By imposing discipline and a radical agenda on his Bolshevik Party and by providing a clear alternative to the repressive autocracy that had acquiesced before, if not abetted, Russian economic and social backwardness, Lenin acquired the power to lead his country toward socialism.

The Soviet regime established after the Russian Revolution in 1917 did not meet Lenin's ideals, but he continued to strive to enact the reforms he deemed necessary for modernizing Russian culture, the economy, and society. Ruthless yet compassionate, pragmatic yet idealistic, Lenin was a paradox who knew how to recognize the opportunity for revolution when others did not.


Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov grew up in Simbirsk, on the Volga, where his father was a school inspector. Born on April 22, 1870, he had two brothers and three sisters with whom he had a close relationship.

Along with others of similar education and professional attainments, Lenin's father hoped for major reforms to the Russian political, economic, and social systems. Yet Lenin's revolutionary aspirations and Marxist principles, which were avidly supported by his sisters, far transcended the reformist goals of his father.

Around 1886 Lenin began to develop his political thought and committed to revolution as a means of bringing about substantive, profound change in Russia. His brother Alexander was arrested in that year for having plotted to assassinate Czar Alexander III; his execution marked the young Vladimir and made him more politically conscious.

He yearned for an end to crass materialism, the sexual double standard, and the corrupt values of late 19th-century Russia. Perhaps as a consequence of his brother's experience, Vladimir opted against terrorism and assassination; instead he cultivated the persona of a self-conscious, professional revolutionary.

As a consequence of his brother's conviction, Lenin endured police surveillance. Although he was among the best students in Russia, he could not obtain a place at any of the major universities; he settled for the local university in Kazan. He was soon expelled, however, along with all "risky" students. He later studied law by correspondence at the University of Saint Petersburg, but conventional careers were clearly closed to him.

As he began his sporadic work as a legal assistant in late 1893, Lenin continued his voracious reading. He delved even further and more deeply into the works of intellectuals such as George Plekhanov, the founding father of Russian social democracy, and Karl Marx. In 1889 he translated the Communist Manifesto.

While Lenin continued to mourn the loss of his much-loved sister Olga, who died in 1891, he met the woman who would become his longtime companion and wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya. Together they studied Marx, contemplated social democratic strategy, and started to practice the tactics required of political subversives in czarist Russia.

Around the same time Lenin appeared in police surveillance records on his own account, having defended Marxist views in a debate with a populist in 1894. He also wrote his first pamphlets and articles around this time.

Lenin made his first trip outside Russia in 1895, when he met with social democrats such as Wilhelm Liebknecht in Germany and Paul Laforgue in France. Upon his return to Russia, he cofounded a social democratic group and established a newspaper. These activities attracted police attention, and Lenin was arrested in December along with many of his colleagues.

He spent about a year in Saint Petersburg, where he was interrogated four times, before being sentenced to three years in Siberia. Krupskaya was arrested while Lenin was in jail, and she received permission to join him in exile. Lenin spent the years in Siberia (1897–1900) reading, writing, and giving legal advice to local peasants.

He began to develop his own interpretations of Marxism and to interpret Russian conditions in that light. Lenin and other Russian social democrats rejected the populist argument that peasants were proto-communists.

Lenin rigorously opposed the notion that socialism would "just happen" or even come about as a consequence of a series of incremental reforms to capitalism. He maintained that both dramatic political change and dramatic socioeconomic change would have to occur; social democrats had to fight for them all simultaneously.

Lenin's perspective was influenced by the ideas of Russian revolutionary and anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who had focused criticism on the state and the church as the major sources of oppression in Russia. Lenin shared Bakunin's antipathy toward religion and the Russian Orthodox Church, though he thought that the state could be captured and directed to serve the working class.

Strong Executive

Although Lenin occasionally sought reconciliation, the 1903 split between his Bolsheviks and the more reformist Mensheviks became permanent. Lenin averred that Russian social democracy most needed a tightly disciplined party with a strong executive. As events showed, his organizational model proved valid.

The Russian Revolution of 1905 disappointed Russian radicals and revolutionaries, though they did find their way back into the country for a few years.

Lenin saw the beginnings of a bourgeois revolution, though the ephemeral character of constitutional reforms granted by the czar indicated that Russians had much revolutionary ground yet to travel. After returning to exile in Europe, where he would remain for the decade prior to 1917, Lenin resumed his efforts to push Russia out of its czarist rut.

The International Socialist Bureau did not recognize Lenin as sole leader of the Russian socialists, though he did gain control over the key newspapers of the group. In the years prior to World War I, Lenin organized, read, and wrote. He published articles on party organization, socialism, religion (in which he recommended that the party oppose religion, even as a private affair), and socialism in Asia.

The outbreak of World War I found Lenin and Krupskaya in Kraków, Poland. Lenin had taken an interest in the implications of foreign affairs for social democracy in Russia since the turn of the century, and he reservedly predicted that the war would hasten the advent of socialism in Europe. Although unafraid of class, civil, or revolutionary wars if they would promote socialism, Lenin could not abide imperialist, bourgeois international wars.

Lenin envisioned a Socialist International that would recognize national cultures as equal and sovereign while emphasizing the shared character of the socialist struggle. Lenin continued and further elaborated his thought on wars and the overall international situation in Imperialism (published in 1917) and State and Revolution.

When the revolutionary year of 1917 dawned, Lenin seemed a rather marginal figure on the Russian political stage. Having been out of Russia for decades and with only a relatively small group of ardent supporters, Lenin returned to Petrograd in April with apparently little prospect of acquiring power.

He surprised even his allies, many of whom had greeted him upon his arrival at Finland Station, with his April Theses; the party did not fall into line with his radical demands until three weeks of debate had passed.

Lenin's refusal to endorse participation in the provisional government contravened the desire of many Bolsheviks (including Joseph Stalin) to exercise influence in any way they could. He advocated an immediate end to Russian participation in World War I.

Gradual Socialism

He encouraged Bolsheviks to cultivate close relations with the soviets that had formed in the cities and the countryside. Lenin wanted to destroy the state institutions that were oppressing Russians, though he did not state that he aimed to eliminate the police, the bureaucracy, and the army for good.

Lenin further recommended the confiscation and redistribution of landed estates; he hoped to prevent small peasant farms from replacing them by immediately nationalizing the land. He planned to introduce socialism gradually, first by giving control over production and distribution to the soviets of workers' deputies.

As the days and months of 1917 passed, Lenin became an increasingly important leader, even after the provisional government began to hound the Bolsheviks. His decisive moves to capitalize on the weakness of that government enabled his party to seize power in October, even though the Bolsheviks had not yet converted even a minority of Russians to their ideology.

The Bolsheviks did not have control over the countryside in 1917 or immediately thereafter, with the result that peasants had proceeded to form smallholdings; some of them had already begun to amass considerable acreage.

Hence, collectivization could not occur as Lenin had hoped. The Ukraine and other provinces under the control of the Russian government experienced a revival of nationalist sentiment. The economy remained in shambles.

World War I had already demonstrated the incapacity of Russian infrastructure and industry to provide for the people, but Russia's gross national product suffered even further after the Bolsheviks gave control of factories to workers who had no training in management and little real knowledge of the overall production process.

Lastly, the party abandoned real democracy; Lenin declared that the Bolsheviks had to direct the government and the economy until such time as the Russian people had experience with the new system and had enough education to appreciate the communist ideal. The Bolsheviks enacted legislation that gave equal rights to women, though the people had not pushed for such changes.

Lenin suffered a debilitating stroke in 1923 after having previously suffered two less harmful attacks. By that time the Communist government had yielded to political and economic pressure as well as the reality of food shortages and lack of industrial supplies, by enacting the New Economic Policy.

Lenin and his supporters intended for such reforms to ease nationalization, collectivization, and the end of private enterprise, though they allowed for the latter and for small family farms in the short term as a means to generate the national wealth needed to effect the transition to communism.

Before Lenin died he had already surrendered real, everyday control over the government. He had not appointed a successor; his close associates Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin each viewed themselves as such, along with several other aspirants.

When he died in 1924, Lenin had effected a revolution that had radically changed perceptions of Russia and its prospects for the future. Whether his successors could realize the potential of the revolution and the promise of communism remained unknown.

Soviet Union New Economic Policy

Soviet Union New Economic Policy Poster

The New Economic Policy (NEP) was the transition from an inherent policy of "military communism" food surplus requisitioning to regular food taxation accompanied by liberalization of internal trade and a state monopoly on international trade and heavy industry.

The introduction of the NEP was the result of the necessity to maintain the rural population and the agricultural sector of the economy, which were exhausted by civil war. A famine in 1921–23 in the central part of Russia due to economic as well as ecological and climatic factors was an argument in favor of the revision of existing economic policy.

The NEP was an initiative of Vladimir Lenin, who, by the beginning of 1921, had already realized that the young Soviet state could face a peasants' war. The 10th congress of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) took place in March 1921 and adopted Lenin's proposal to transition from food surplus requisitioning to a regular taxation system, the starting point of the NEP, called nepo or nep.


From the very beginning the NEP was perceived by Communists as a forced temporary deviation from the immediate introduction of communism based on so-called Marxist ideals.

Changes in the food taxation system (the transition from voluntaristic food requisitioning to regular food and, soon afterward, to money taxation) accompanied other reforms in the economic sphere. One of the most important of them was the introduction of the possibility for peasants to sell their surplus products at free markets, which meant the renewal of free internal trade in the country.

Foreign concessions and lease and privatization of small enterprises were allowed, and trusts got permission for their activity on self-supporting bases. The organization of new collective and state farms was temporarily suspended, and private land cultivation and land lease were allowed.

Nevertheless, the building of communism was not cancelled at all, and key aspects of the economy were totally controlled by the Soviet state. It was a sort of Bolsheviks' guarantee that in the future, socialist elements would overcome capitalist ones under the proletariat dictatorship.

The first results of the introduction of the NEP were visible as early as the 1925, when in most Soviet republics grain production was already as high as before World War I, and industry production levels were also renewed.

Changes in economic policy and a general improvement of human welfare were accompanied by general liberalization in the social and cultural spheres. The end of hunger and economic disaster destroyed the basis for peasants' rebellion movements and contributed greatly to the spontaneous breakup of widely distributed armed bands, particularly in the Ukraine.

Mass repressions were stopped, and amnesty was given to members of groups and noncommunist parties. Political emigrants were allowed to return to the country. Such liberalization, alongside an improvement in general welfare, gave the population under Bolshevik rule a desire for freedom and caused movement in social and cultural life, ethnic identification, national revival, and other processes noncoherent with proletariat dictatorship ideology.

In social and cultural spheres, signs of the end of the general liberalization of internal policy connected with the NEP appeared as early as 1926–28. Usually they are associated with the campaign against socalled nationalistic deviations in the Ukraine, which was a specific trend in the communist movement that tried to synthesize the building of communist society with national liberation movements. This campaign was accompanied by an attack on the Orthodox and Autocephal Churches and the destruction of monasteries and churches.

In spite of obvious traces of economic growth, the country remained mostly agrarian in its economic orientation and could hardly be competitive with the leading European countries in its struggle for survival. Since the very beginning, the Soviet state had been permanently preparing for the great war against the imperialists, so a well-equipped and modern army needed to be created and maintained.

One of the key tasks of the Bolsheviks, headed at that time by Joseph Stalin, became an acceleration of heavy industry development, which was ensured by significant investments. It was proclaimed the main goal of the country's development at the 14th congress in December 1925.

The only reliable source of such investments for the Soviet state was an internal one; that is, it could be maintained by redistribution of internal gross product, guaranteed by strictly controlling all spheres of the economy, the agrarian one included.

One means of such gross product redistribution—artificially created differences in prices for industrial and agricultural products, with the help of which up to half of the agricultural segment's income was cut in favor of the industrial one—was widely used during the NEP period. By 1926 it resulted in the so-called NEP crisis: Price control by the state caused a significant excess of demand.

Economic policy reorientation, which factually meant dismantling the New Economic Policy, was marked by two epochal decisions by Communist leaders: industrialization and collectivization strategy plans, which came to be known as the Great Breakdown.

The first five-year plan of industry development for 1928–33, adopted by the 15th congress of the Communist Party (December 1927), envisaged a high but relatively balanced rate of industry growth. Nevertheless, soon the Communist leadership demanded acceleration. Investment shortage was accompanied by a food crisis in 1928, which was caused by extremely poor harvests in the main Soviet granaries.

It was given as the reason to reactivate food requisitioning, to destroy the agrarian market, to intensify the organization of collective farms, and to begin a campaign against relatively prosperous peasants (kulaki), proclaimed by Stalin at the All-Union Conference of Marxists-Agrarians in December 1929.

These decisions faced economically motivated objections, and Stalin's ideas of economic strategic development met strong opposition among Communist Party leaders, including Nikolay Bukharin, Nikolay Rykov, and others. It was a reason that Stalin started his struggle for absolute power, which implied new waves of terror, hunger, and political repressions. In fact, dismantling of the New Economic Policy was the starting point for a final totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union.

Treaty of Portsmouth

Treaty of Portsmouth reception

The Treaty of Portsmouth of September 1905 marked the end of the Russo-Japanese War and was the first international treaty to be signed in the United States. It ended a war that had occurred because of the colliding ambitions of the Russians and the newly industrialized Japanese in the Far East.

Russia saw Manchuria, part of the crumbling Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty of China, as ripe for expansion. Port Arthur offered a port that could be used all year and the opportunity to build a railroad. The Russians also had designs on Korea and had received territorial concessions from the Chinese.

From Japan's point of view, Manchuria also seemed ripe for development, and Japan believed that Korea should be part of its sphere of influence. Russia also had gained control of part of China, which Japan had been forced to give up after the recent Sino-Japanese War.


Japan initiated hostilities in March of 1904 by attacking Russian forces in Korea and later in Manchuria and besieging Port Arthur. The result of these battles and other actions was a string of Japanese victories.

Though Russia could call upon more troops, the Japanese possessed far better equipment and weapons. In fact, many regard this conflict as a laboratory of the kind of combat that would occur in World War I a few years later.

At sea the Japanese also inflicted severe losses on the Russian navy. Having found that their Far Eastern fleet had been sunk by the Japanese at Port Arthur, a large Russian fleet arrived in the area from Europe in May 1905 at the Battle of Tsushima Straits, met the Japanese fleet, and suffered a disastrous defeat.

Treaty of Portsmouth

Many Russian capital ships were destroyed with high loss of life. This was the first great naval contest involving the new super battleships. The Japanese had defeated the Russians, the first victory of an Asiatic power over a European, but they were in desperate financial shape. The moment was at hand for peace.

The peace treaty was brokered by U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Interestingly, Roosevelt never attended any of the sessions. Portsmouth, a pleasant New Hampshire city, was chosen as the site of the negotiations, and a number of the delegates stayed at a local resort, Wentworth by the Sea. The talks took place at the Portsmouth Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, for the sake of security. During their time off, the delegates mingled with Portsmouth citizens.

The delegations were headed by Serge Witte for Russia and Jutaro Komura for Japan. The negotiations stopped a number of times when the two sides disagreed but finally came to a conclusion brought about through compromise and through Roosevelt's intervention.


According to the treaty, Russia conceded that Korea was in the Japanese orbit and that Russia should withdraw from southern Manchuria, leaving it under symbolic Chinese control. In addition, the Russian right to build the South Manchurian Railway was handed over to Japan, as well as Liaodong (Liaotung) Peninsula and Port Arthur at its southern tip, along with the southern part of Sakhalin Island.

The Japanese also received fishing rights near the Russian coast. Both Russia and Japan were dissatisfied with the results, and there were riots in Japan. Nonetheless, the treaty did mark Japan's emergence as a power in the Far East.

Russian Revolution (1905)

Demonstrators in Jakobstad

On January 9, 1905, a vast but orderly crowd of Russian workers approached the Winter Palace to present Czar Nicholas II with a list of both economic and political grievances. The petition included among its demands an eight-hour workday, increased wages, improved working conditions, and an immediate end to the Russo-Japanese War.

In addition, at the suggestion of liberal intellectuals, the petition urged the czar to convene a constituent assembly. The demonstrators, most of whom regarded Nicholas II as a father figure who would redress their grievances, carried with them portraits of the czar and of Orthodox saints. Father Georgii Gapon—a Russian Orthodox priest and the head of a police-sponsored trade union—led the procession, which included approximately 150,000 unarmed workers.

As the procession approached the Winter Palace, it found its way blocked by armed troops. When the crowd failed to disperse as ordered, the troops opened fire, killing nearly 200 and wounding several hundred more. The events of that day, which came to be known as Bloody Sunday, sparked riots and demonstrations across Russia and marked the onset of the 1905 Russian Revolution.


Until that point, the Russian masses had played little if any role in the political turmoil that beset late-czarist Russia. In the months that followed, however, the working classes would play a key role in the revolutionary movement.

To protest the massacre of unarmed demonstrators, thousands of workers across Russia went on strike. Liberals used the occasion of worker unrest to press for constitutional reform, urging the czar to abandon autocracy in favor of a constitutional monarchy.

For the next several months the czar's regime was variously confronted with student demonstrations, workers' strikes, peasant disorders, unrest among ethnic minorities, and even mutinies in the armed forces.

Manifestations before Bloody Sunday

Efforts to restore order were not helped by the fact that Russian troops remained in the Far East fighting the Japanese. Hoping to appease popular opinion, Nicholas II decided in late August to grant freedom of assembly to university students for the first time since 1884.

As part of the concession, the czar forbade police even to enter university grounds. The efforts at conciliation backfired; the universities became more of a radical hotbed than ever as students recruited workers from nearby factories to participate in political rallies without fear of police intervention.

By the second week of October, a general strike encompassing workers in several key industries forced the czar to make further concessions. Russia had negotiated a peace treaty with Japan (the Treaty of Portsmouth) in late August, but with the railway workers on strike the troops could not be brought home.

Meanwhile, with the autocracy apparently unable to restore order, the Russian economy was grinding to a halt. The minister of finance, Sergei Witte, convinced Nicholas II to grant concessions in the hopes of dividing the liberals from their more radical counterparts. According to Witte, there was no other way to save the monarchy.

In the October Manifesto, dated October 17, Nicholas pledged to grant civil liberties and to create a parliament (the duma) based in part on popular elections. Laws passed over the next several months abolished censorship and guaranteed freedom of assembly and association.

As a result of the October Manifesto, the liberals were divided into two factions: the Octoberists, who accepted the terms set forth in the proclamation, and the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets), who held out for further reform.

Both groups, however, withdrew from revolutionary activity, at least in the short term, to prepare for the upcoming duma elections. Witte's objective of separating the liberals from the radicals was therefore accomplished, but order was by no means restored.

Workers became increasingly militant throughout the remainder of the year, and the socialist intelligentsia was further radicalized. In addition, bloody pogroms against Jews and intellectuals followed the proclamation of the manifesto.

In the countryside peasants continued to riot, sacking and burning manor houses and attacking landowners and officials. By the following winter much of rural Russia was under martial law, and over 1,000 peasants were executed in a campaign of village-by-village pacification.

The constitution promised in the October Manifesto was published in April 1906. The so-called Fundamental Laws (which continued to refer to the czar as an autocrat) established a two-chamber parliament, the lower house of which was made up of elected officials.

While this represented progress to many who favored liberal reform, the effects of the constitution were limited in practice. The franchise system for duma elections favored the propertied classes over ethnic minorities, peasants, and workers.

In addition, the Crown reserved the right to dissolve the duma at any time, and article 87 of the Fundamental Laws enabled the Crown to rule by decree when the duma was not in session.

After the first two dumas were arbitrarily dissolved, the government took advantage of article 87 to enact a new electoral law that further skewed electoral representation in favor of the propertied classes. Meanwhile, the continued activity of the secret police at least partially undermined any concessions that had resulted from the 1905 revolution.

Russian Revolution and Civil War (1917 - 1924)

Russian Revolution of 1917

Like most revolutions, the Russian Revolution of 1917 had a combination of political and social causes. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was the last of the great powers to retain an autocratic system of government. Educated Russians, many of them influenced by liberal ideas from the West, resented the lack of civil and political rights under the Russian system and pressed for political change.

Progress was made following the 1905 revolution; an elected parliament (the duma) was established, censorship was abolished, and political parties were finally legalized. Nevertheless, Czar Nicholas II continued to rule as an autocrat, dissolving the duma at will, and political and civil liberties remained circumscribed by the pervasive presence of the secret police.

The absence of an effective forum for political participation, even after 1905, furthered the development of a radical intelligentsia determined to overthrow the autocratic regime. The intelligentsia became more, rather than less, radical after 1905, viewing the events of that year as an episode on the road to full-scale revolution.


In addition to political grievances, social and economic discontent helped pave the way for revolution. Russia was comparatively late to emerge from feudalism, serfdom having been abolished only in 1861. Peasants, who made up 80 percent of Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century, pressed for the redistribution of land from private landowners to the peasant communes.

Rural overpopulation exacerbated peasant discontent, and the czarist regime was confronted with ongoing agrarian disturbances in the years leading up to 1917. Compared to the other great powers, Russia was also late to industrialize. Rapid industrialization beginning in the 1890s put tremendous strains on Russian society and produced a nascent working class with great revolutionary potential.

Through political rallies and educational circles, the radical intelligentsia turned to the workers for support in fostering a socialist revolutionary program. The Social Democrats in particular preached that the industrial workers were the only truly revolutionary class.

In reality, most workers were probably more interested in seeing their economic grievances (low wages, poor working conditions, etc.) redressed than in seeing the autocratic regime toppled. Nevertheless, since the authorities typically responded to strikes and demonstrations by sending in police and Cossack troops, economic issues were easily politicized.

The long-term social, economic, and political discontents that confronted Russian society in the early 20th century were exacerbated by Russia's involvement in World War I. Crushing defeats at the hands of the German armies, together with the glaring inefficiency of a bureaucracy confronted with the demands of total war, discredited the czarist regime in the eyes of the

Russian people. The czar's wife, Empress Alexandra, was extremely unpopular due to her German origin and her association with Rasputin, a peasant healer from Siberia who treated the heir to the throne for hemophilia. When Nicholas II left for the front to take control of the Russian armed forces, Rasputin gained considerable influence at court.

False rumors about a romantic affair between the czarina and Rasputin contributed to the desacralization of the monarchy and the further erosion of czarist authority. Meanwhile, growing inflation and lengthening bread lines revitalized the workers' strike movement during the war and provided the spark that would ignite the February revolution.

The first phase of the 1917 revolution began on February 23 (International Women's Day), when women workers from Petrograd textile mills took to the streets demanding an end to the bread shortage. The strike quickly spread to nearby factories; by the following day more than 200,000 workers had gone on strike.

On February 25 students and members of the middle classes joined the demonstrators, demanding an end both to the war and to the czarist government. By that point the workers' movement had developed into a general strike, paralyzing the normal functioning of the Russian capital. On February 26 armed troops, acting on orders from the government, fired on the demonstrators, killing hundreds. The massacre sparked a mutiny within the Petrograd garrison.

Early on the morning of February 27, soldiers of the Volynskii regiment shot their commanding officer, then rushed to nearby regiments and persuaded soldiers there to revolt as well. Many soldiers joined the insurgents on the streets, while others simply disobeyed any further commands to fire on civilians.

What began as two physically separate revolts—the soldiers' mutiny in the city center and the workers' demonstrations in the outlying districts—became joined by the afternoon of February 27 as insurrection spread to all parts of the city.

Members of the Duma (the Russian parliament) anxiously watched the street violence of late February from their meeting place at the Tauride Palace and debated how best to restore order.

When Nicholas ordered the duma dissolved, Duma leaders decided to form a "Temporary Committee of the State Duma" to take over the reins of government in Petrograd. On the same evening in a different room of the Tauride Palace, workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals met to form the Petrograd Soviet.

Over the course of the next several days, the two bodies worked together to consolidate the revolution and establish a new government. The provisional government was formed on March 2; it was to govern until a constituent assembly based on universal elections could be convened.

With the exception of Alexander Kerensky, a moderate socialist who sat on both the provisional government and the Soviet Executive Committee, the socialists initially declined to join the provisional government.

The leaders of the Petrograd Soviet pledged to support the new government, however, as long as the government pursued policies of which the Soviet approved. This decision ushered in an era of "dual authority" characterized by tense and often uneasy cooperation between the Soviet and the provisional government.

Spread of Revolution

Meanwhile, the revolution spread quickly and with relatively little bloodshed (there were exceptions such as Tver, where considerable violence occurred) to the provincial cities and then to the countryside.

On March 2 the military high command convinced Nicholas II to abdicate in favor of his brother Michael. (The czar initially decided to abdicate in favor of his son Alexis but changed his mind due in part to his son's poor health.) When Grand Prince Michael refused the crown on March 3, the threecenturies-old Romanov dynasty, and with it Russia's monarchical system of government, came to an end.

The extreme optimism that accompanied the February revolution began to fade after several weeks as the provisional government dragged its feet on the urgent issues of land reform, peace, and elections to the constituent assembly. Returning to Russia on April 3 after almost 16 years of exile, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin issued the April Theses, in which he outlined his plan for the course of the revolution.

Among other things, Lenin called for the overthrow of the provisional government and its replacement by a socialist government based on that of the Soviets. He also rejected cooperation with nonsocialist political groups, demanded an immediate end to the war, and called for radical social and economic reforms.

In mid-April the provisional government faced a political crisis when Foreign Minister Paul Miliokov's controversial policy of continuing the war to victory, rather than seeking a negotiated peace, led to massive street demonstrations and violence.

In the wake of the April Crisis, the government was reorganized; several leaders from the Petrograd Soviet were brought in to form the first coalition government of moderate socialists and nonsocialists. The Bolsheviks, under Lenin's leadership, continued to remain aloof from the provisional government.

Throughout the summer of 1917, food shortages and continued economic hardship contributed to growing disillusionment with the provisional government. Discontent over Russia's involvement in the war continued to increase, particularly after the government launched an unsuccessful military offensive in June. The summer months were characterized by almost continuous government instability.

Workers and garrison soldiers once again took to the streets during the July Days (July 3–5), demanding that all governmental power be passed to the Soviets. The demonstrations were suppressed on July 5, and Bolshevik leaders were forced into hiding.

In the aftermath of the July Days, a second coalition was formed, with Kerensky as prime minister. That government collapsed as well after suspicions of an attempted coup in late August (the Kornilov Affair) seemed to confirm fears of a counterrevolutionary movement.

The threat of counterrevolution, coupled with popular disillusionment over the provisional government's failure to end the war and enact promised reforms, increased the popularity of the radical left and paved the way for the October Revolution.

In the fall of 1917, with a political climate favorable to the radical left, Bolshevik leaders debated how and when to take over the government. Lenin favored an immediate insurrection, while more moderate Bolsheviks preferred to wait for the second Congress of the Soviets when, they believed, power would pass to the Soviets by democratic means.

The question resolved itself on the morning of October 24, when Kerensky shut down the leading Bolshevik newspapers in an effort to suppress the radical left. The Bolsheviks could then move forward with plans to overthrow the government, justifying their seizure of power as a necessary step to defend the revolution.

Unlike the February revolution, the October Revolution was not characterized by massive street demonstrations. Instead, small groups of soldiers and Red Guards took control of bridges, railway stations, and other strategic points throughout Petrograd.

Unable to summon troops to resist the insurgents, Kerensky fled. On the afternoon of October 25, Lenin announced that the provisional government had been overthrown. Significantly, the insurrection was carried out in the name of the Petrograd Soviet and not the Bolshevik Party.

However, Menshevik and Social Revolutionary delegates walked out of the Congress of Soviets on the night of October 25 to protest the insurrection, leaving the Bolsheviks with a majority in the congress. The following day Lenin announced decrees on peace and land and the formation of an all-Bolshevik government, the Council of People's Commissars (or Sovnarkom).

Once in power, the Bolsheviks decided to go forward with elections to the constituent assembly in mid-November. The Socialist Revolutionaries were the clear winners in the election, gaining 40 percent of the popular vote against the Bolsheviks' 25 percent (the remainder of the votes were divided among the Constitutional Democrats [Kadets], the Mensheviks, and non–Russian nationality candidates). Recognizing that its hold on power was precarious, the Bolshevik government took steps to consolidate its authority and quash any resistance.

Soviets attacking the Czar's police in the early days of the March Revolution

After ordering the arrest of leading Kadets in late November, the government established the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with Counterrevolution and Sabotage (or Cheka) on December 7. The Cheka, which could arrest and execute without trial anyone suspected of counterrevolutionary activities, quickly became one of the most powerful organs of the state.

The constituent assembly opened as planned on January 5, 1918, but the Bolshevik government forcibly dispersed the assembly after only one day. By circumventing the democratic process and choosing instead to rule by force, the Bolsheviks laid the foundation for the authoritarian dictatorship that would follow. The decision to suppress the constituent assembly also opened the door to civil war.

The Russian Civil War was a complex affair that is perhaps best seen as two or even three distinct civil wars occurring between 1918 and 1922. The first serious challenge the Bolsheviks faced came from the Komuch, a group of Right Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) who opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and sought to restore the constituent assembly. In June 1918 with the aid of insurgent Czechoslovak legions, the Right SRs set up a regional government for the Volga based on the platform of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

The conflict between the Bolsheviks and the socalled "patriotic socialists" was upstaged by the decision of the "Whites" (Russian nationalist officers, supported by industrialists and former landowners) to stage a coup in Omsk in November 1918.

Despite Allied intervention on behalf of the White forces, the Bolsheviks' Red Army was able to suppress the attempted counterrevolution, but only after two years of bloody conflict. After the final defeat of the Whites in the autumn of 1920, the focus of fighting shifted to widespread peasant insurrections, collectively referred to as the Green movement.

Many of the peasant guerrilla leaders had been allied with the Red Army in defeating the White forces; once the threat of a White victory (which would have meant the return of the landlords) disappeared, however, peasant revolts against Bolshevik policies—most notably the forced requisitioning of grain—erupted across Russia on a massive scale. It took a combination of concessions and brutal repression to quell the peasant revolts and finally end the civil war.

Throughout the civil war years Lenin and the Bolsheviks employed ruthless measures to eradicate any political opposition, thus creating the first one-party state and providing a model for later totalitarian regimes. Upon Lenin's death in January 1924, Joseph Stalin succeeded him (after considerable party infighting) as leader of the Communist Party.