ABSTRACT
Within the broad political framework created by the Bolshevik takeover and the disintegration of the unified state, the revolution developed with great speed at grass-roots level. Many of the supposed “causes” of the October revolution actually occurred after it had taken place. In particular, it is often said that the land was divided up between February and October 1917 and that this, in turn, provided an incentive for soldiers to desert in order to share the spoils. What actually happened was rather different. After October, the war, or at least the fighting, quickly ended and the Bolsheviks began to urge the six million soldiers still at the front to go home, taking their weapons with them. Thus it was only after October that the army crumbled away, leaving only the thinnest of screens to defend Russia. While this undoubtedly fulfilled the main specific aim of the soldiers’ and sailors’ movement it was, like other “gains” of the period, highly ambiguous. No one had wanted to dissolve the means of defence before agreeing armistice terms with Germany. Bolshevik haste to do so is explained by their frantic desire to deprive the old elite of the power to strike at the revolution. In fact, it would have been impossible for the officers to use the mass of the army for their own political purposes as the Kornilov affair had shown, but by dissolving the army in this over-hurried fashion the Bolsheviks left themselves at the mercy of Germany. At the same time, army committees and soviets briefly flourished. Kronstadt became virtually independent. But Bolshevik centralization was already beginning to make itself felt in this most vital of areas.
