Explosion 1915–1917

Abstract

Foreigners on Russian soil in 1917, with few exceptions, reported little else but chaos and carnage. Many welcomed the February Revolution but treated the October Revolution as the coming of Anti-Christ. How had it come about that the Bolsheviks could seize power in October? The answer widely proposed at the time and endorsed by countless commentators in our own day was unambiguous. The Bolshevik party manipulated an untutored public opinion among workers, soldiers and peasants. They grabbed governmental authority through conspiracy. They were disciplined and centralised, and they served their dictatorial leader Lenin with blind devotion. Thus the Russian ‘masses’ were highjacked into acceptance of the coup of October by a tiny, intellectual elite of megalomaniacs. The liberals and the moderate socialists had failed by dint of not acting forcefully enough and for not backing the army ‘strong man’, General Kornilov, who was prepared to strangle Bolshevism in its cradle.