is what the Russian Revolution was about. THAT Tsar in the lead of the country, THOSE allies of the Tsar, that small bunch of extremely talented cynics and riff-raffs from revolutionary parties, that good luck for one party, and that fatal bad luck for the other. Criminal stupidity, foul treachery, impermissible faith, and a gift of oratory – all of it made our revolution happen. There were dozens of thousands of factors that combined for Russia's bad luck.
All those ifs…
However, we can't fail to see that all of it was prepared by the scouts of the foreign nation, who took every effort to get all of it ready…
…Our revolution had two stages that are mistakenly considered to be independent full-weight coups. Whether you admit it or not, it all started in February.[1] We've always been told that the events of the February Revolution were plain and simple: hungry people took to the streets to cry out for some bread and then turned to political slogans. They say it was how autocracy was toppled in Russia. However, the simplicity of this scheme is so very misleading. For instance, Pavel Milyukov, one of the leaders of the February Revolution, the leader of the Constitutional Democratic (KDs) Party, didn't agree with this simplicity. Having participated in those events in person, he didn't delay to write down his reminiscences of them, where he confided that the mechanisms of the February Revolution remained unclear to him.
"This is the darkest spot in the history of the Russian Revolution," Milyukov wrote about the events that had put a start to the February Revolution.[2] The name of the chapter where this quotation comes from is also informative, as it is "Secret Sources of Labor Movement."[3] The matter of how and why this revolution started is "the darkest spot" in regard to the February Revolution. This is so odd – you start to read memoirs of the central figures of those events and see blind spots here and there. You had it all clear, bread – demonstration – revolution, but as soon as you open the memoirs of one of the main "Februarists," the puzzle gets scattered.
"One of the omens for this overthrow was the suppressed unrest within labor masses, its source unclear, though this source could hardly have been the leaders of Socialist Parties within the State Duma."[4]
The coup started with labor demonstrations, but Milyukov was absolutely unaware of who organized them and why they began.
It is only obvious that KDs didn't initiate them, and nor did their allies from the Progressive Party in the Duma. Social Revolutionaries (SRs) didn't take people to the streets, either. This becomes evident as we flip through a book by Victor Chernov, a well-known leader of this party. After the chapter on how the World War proceeded and how revolutionaries from different countries were trying to come to some mutual understanding, he tells us how he returned to Russia after the February Revolution.[5] If SRs had made something this important, they would have been trumpeting about it all over the world: we've started a process that ended in the damned tsarism overthrowing!
Bolsheviks didn't organize the labor demonstrations, either, though later the Soviet historians crept them with the merit of the manifestation arrangement. However, it happened much later, when many of those involved in these events were already dead, and the rest of them were writing their memoirs abroad. At that moment, the matter of who took people to the streets in February 1917 was interesting only to a small coterie, and no one was going to argue with the Red historians. It was so convenient and profitable for the true orchestrators of Russia's collapse. Lenin and his party gave them a 100% good alibi. However, contradicting this lie is so easy – we only need to ask who of the Bolshevist leaders arranged the labor demonstrations that ended in the tsarism overthrowing. It will instantly become clear that all of them were either abroad or in prison, and Vladimir Lenin learnt about the revolution "orchestrated by his party" from the fresh Swiss newspapers. And oh, he was surprised.
And yet, the start of the February Revolution is the key moment for us. We need to know for sure when the Russian Empire started to collapse, and then we will arm ourselves with patience and immense into the subject. And here there are some new discoveries. To be more specific, the logics of these events should be like this: bread – the labor demonstration – the clashes with the police – the revolt of the city garrison soldiers – the revolution. And again, there are mysteries at every turn here:
• it is unknown why the working people came to protest;
• it is also unknown who orchestrated these demonstrations.
"Neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks, or the Working Party, or the SRs on their own or all together could have brought the workers of Petrograd to the streets," Viktor Chernov, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary party, wrote in his memoirs.[6]
So, the workers just stopped working, drew some posters and banners as they must have been bored and for no reason moved forward to overthrow autocracy If we dig further into the Chronicles of the February Revolution, it doesn't become any clearer. Nobody can give a reasonable answer to the second key question – who took the soldiers to the streets?
"Just the day before it (appearance of soldiers – N. S.), the representatives of the left-wing parties met, and most of them were sure that the turmoil was fading away and that the Government had won," Milyukov quoted his Duma colleague Vladimir Stankevich and added, "However, behind-the-scenes revolution preparation remained behind the scenes."[7]
Hey, that is interesting. A revolution took place, and no one can clearly explain how its primary events, which caused the shift in power in Russia, happened. No one got soldiers or workers ready, but as if commanded they took to the streets when it was needed, and the outcome of the case was in favor of the overthrow. "There must have been a directing force, but it obviously had nothing to do with organized left-wing parties," Milyukov tells us.[8] And there are some incertitude and confusion in the words of the KD leader. The revolution happened, but neither the Rights (i.e., KDs and Octobrists) nor the Lefts (i.e., SRs and Social Democrats) had organized it. It's hard not to get confused: they had been waiting for freedom decades-long, and when it came, no one knew whom to bless for it.
And old time-proven clichés – whatever is wrong, the Germans did it – didn't work here. It was so convenient, and no evidence was needed. The key proof is really simple: who else can profit from it? Whom did we fight with? Germany Then, whatever was wrong, the Germans did it. However, if we check the facts closer, this simple logic doesn't work. It wasn't for the first time when in February 1917 our dear Russian workers went on a strike. They had already done that before, for instance, during the Russian Revolution in 1905–1907. Still, never in historiography has anyone written that the first Revolution in 1905 with all its strikes was orchestrated by the Kaiser's intelligence service. That was because it was so ridiculous and absurd to blame the Germans for heating up the Russian liberation movement in that historic period. And indeed, Berlin had no motive for subversion in 1905. It was Japan who had the motive, so historians love to say that during the Russo-Japanese war revolutionaries were paid with Mikado's money. Yet, as World War 1 began, the Japanese lost their motive for subversion (as they were with the Entente), and now the Germans had it, as Russia became their opponent.
Just one problem here – all the questionable events of the Russian Revolutions seem to be written with one hand. One hand held the pen and simply copied the same scenario.[9]
And if we know the Germans didn't orchestrate our first revolt, why should we put the February and even the October in their book?
"Great changes came in the east. In March, the revolution supported by the Entente overthrew the Tsar… It is a mystery to me why the Entente walked hand in hand with the revolution… But there is no doubt the Entente hoped to accrue some benefits from the revolution to make war…," said General Erich Ludendorff, the actual leader of the German Army.[10]
Why did they need