The governmental system evolved at a much slower pace than the economic, social, and cultural structures. The 1905 revolution, which grew out of the disastrous war with Japan, compelled Tsar Nicholas II to accept a series of reforms and introduce a constitution. Russia became a constitutional monarchy with an elected assembly, the Duma. Freedom of the press, assembly, and association were guaranteed. These rights, and the powers of the Duma, were more limited than in the Western democracies, but they existed nevertheless. In the Duma, highly diverse political trends were represented—from the Bolsheviks on the left to supporters of absolute monarchy on the right. However, the Duma was based on indirect representation (a system of elections passing through several stages) and a limited franchise (allowing only those with certain qualifications to vote).
In 1906 Prime Minister Stolypin introduced a law allowing every head of a peasant family to become the owner of his share of the village's communal land. Trotsky explained clearly and concisely the potential importance of this reform, which was not fully implemented. "If the agrarian problem ... had been solved by the bourgeoisie, if it could have been solved by them, the Russian proletariat could not possibly have come to power in 1917."13
During the brief period between the 1905 revolution and World War I, Russia underwent a political evolution unprecedented in its history. Nevertheless, discontent spread to all strata of the population. Despite major improvements in their condition, the peasants continued to feel intense land hunger and firmly believed that the only solution to their problems was to divide up the large landed estates. Workers' conditions were slowly improving. They had obtained, albeit with certain restrictions, the right to strike over economic issues and, after 1912, both health and accident insurance. Still they demanded a shorter workday and a better standard of living. The young bourgeoisie, seeking a place in the country's political system, demanded an extension of political rights. The intelligentsia dreamed of a revolution that would bring "freedom," and from its ranks came the nuclei of the numerous political parties. Also opposed to the central government were all the heterogeneous peoples included in the Russian empire, the bitterest discontent being found among the Poles, the Finns, and the Jews.
Russia on the eve of World War I served as confirmation of a rule deduced by Alexis de Tocqueville from an analysis of the causes of the French revolution: for a bad government, the most dangerous time is when it begins to reform itself.
The case of Mendel Beilis, a Jew accused of the ritual murder of a Christian child, summed up the situation in a nutshell. Despite the openly expressed desire of the tsarist government and the judges for a conviction, the jury of half-literate Ukrainian peasants acquitted Beilis. The verdict in his favor was a remarkable expression of the weakness of progovernment forces.
Thus, Russia became involved in the world war at a time of rapid economic development, in an era of demolition and new construction, under conditions of universal discontent and rising expectations, with a weak government incapable of winning popular support. On several occasions the dangers posed by an entrance into the European conflict were pointed out. In February 1914, for example, Petr Durnovo, minister of the interior under the Witte government of 1905-06 and subsequently a member of the tsar's Council of State, sent Nicholas II a memorandum that included these prophetic words:
A war involving all of Europe would be a mortal danger for Russia and Germany, regardless of which was the victor. ... In the event of defeat, a possibility which cannot be excluded when faced with an enemy such as Germany, social revolution in its most extreme form would be inevitable in our country.
The memorandum was found among the tsar's papers after the revolution, unmarked by any royal notations. It is possible that the tsar did not bother to read it.14 Even Grigory Rasputin, that evil genius in the bosom of the royal family, whose influence on the destiny of the nation grew steadily after 1906, warned against the dangers of a war.
To this day historians disagree over who was responsible for and what were the actual causes of World War I. It is often forgotten that in the summer of 1914 one sentiment dominated in Europe: that war among civilized nations was impossible.
Europe entered the war after forty-five years of peace, if we count only wars between "white men," the last such being the Franco—Prussian war of 1871. War seemed inconceivable. Nevertheless it broke out. All the participants had prepared for it, yet they were all taken by surprise. For Russia the war became a test of the solidity of the various components of its colossal governmental, economic, and social organism.
The first battle lost by the Russian army, in East Prussia in August 1914, revealed the government's true condition and gave a glimpse of the factors that would bring the regime's downfall in the spring of 1917. Most historians, be they Russian or Soviet, attribute this defeat to the Russian army's unprepared, hence premature offensive, undertaken with the aim of saving France.
As early as August 1911 General Zhilinsky, then head of the Russian
General Staff, promised the French allies he would send an army of 800,000 men against Germany "on the fifteenth day of mobilization."15 When war was declared the French army launched an immediate offensive, but suffered very heavy casualties. Count Ignatiev, the Russian military аиасЬё in Paris, reported that losses were as high as 50 percent in some French regiments. He added: "It is now clear that the outcome of the war will depend on what we can do to divert the German forces toward outselves."16 The defeat of France would undoubtedly have meant the defeat of Russia as well. The Russian army was inadequately equipped for this crucial offensive, but that did not become apparent until too late.
The causes of the Russian defeat in East Prussia had to do above all with poor generalship, especially on the level of the General Staff and Field Headquarters (the Stavka). The hopes firmly held by all the belligerents, that the war would not last more than five or six weeks, of course proved false. The embattled nations were obliged to readjust, technically and psychologically, to the reality of prolonged positional warfare.
From the very first the Russian army suffered from a shortage of artillery shells, bullets, and rifles; like the other countries, they had believed the war would not last long. A "master plan" for the development of the Russian arms industry stated clearly that the political and economic situation excluded the possibility of a prolonged war.17
In 1915, terribly shaken by its enormous losses on the battlefield, Russia was forced to withdraw from Poland—due in part to the shortage of ammunitions. Thus, a technical problem, munitions supply, became a central issue of state policy. The need to reorganize the economy to meet the demands of the war gave rise to a multitude of economic and political questions touching on the very essence of the tsarist system.
The shortage of shells was neither the sole nor the principal reason for Russia's difficulties, for in 1916, despite an abundance of munitions, amply provided by a reconverted industry, the Russian army was able to achieve success only once—in General Brusilov's offensive against the Austrians in Galicia. The shell "shortage" had been merely a symptom of a serious affliction in the tsarist state organism.