ABSTRACT
The nature of the relationship between Russia’s involvement in the First World War and the 1917 Revolution is a topic which has been mulled over by historians ever since the events took place. Put very simply, the question boils down to this: did the military situation generate the domestic crisis which brought about the disintegration of the tsarist regime; or were the pressures and contradictions within the social and political system already of such a refractory nature as to make revolution in any case inevitable? Against those who argue that it was the war which caused – or at any rate accelerated – the Revolution, it can be countered that the domestic situation before August 1914 was already reaching crisis point. The widespread industrial unrest following the Lena goldfield shootings, the deteriorating relations between the government and the Duma, the political disaffection of the middle classes and the repercussions of the Rasputin affair, and the unresolved agrarian problems – all suggested that state and society were once more lurching towards some kind of dramatic confrontation. The declaration of war between Russia and Germany, however, temporarily defused the
situation as a wave of primitive patriotism swept across the country impelling tsar, government, society and the people to unite briefly in the defence of Mother Russia. Only the Social Democrats, and then not all of them, opposed the ‘imperialist’ war – a situation from which the Bolsheviks were to draw dividends as the popular mood later swung away from one of optimistic and aggressive nationalism to war-weariness and a yearning for Russia’s unilateral withdrawal.
