The fate of Russia without the October Revolution

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Until now, there are heated debates about what the fate of Russia would have been if the Bolsheviks had not made the October Revolution and accelerated industrialization. Let's look at this question from the point of view of Neo-Economics.

This question is divided into two parts - tactical (political) and strategic (economic)

First of all, let's first define what events preceded the coup on November 7, 1917 and describe the situation at the tactical, political level.

The monarchy in Russia was overthrown in February 1917. The Bolsheviks practically had nothing to do with this - most of them were in exile or emigration at that time. Since then, 9 months have passed, during which the Provisional Government ruled in the country.

As soon as the figure of the king was removed, the country went to pieces. The reasons for this are quite obvious to everyone who understands how state administration works in a territorial empire.

The whole mechanism of state administration began to fall apart. The separatism of the regions was also gaining momentum. The Provisional Government, which took power, could not cope with basic things: the delivery of food, the organization of transport links; The decomposition and disintegration of the army was in full swing.

The provisional government was unable to create a single working state institution that would stop the processes of the country's disintegration.

Obviously, such a role could not have been played by the Constituent Assembly, the convocation of which was constantly pushed back by the Provisional Government. The fact is that already during the Constituent Assembly it turned out that out of 800 deputies who were supposed to be present during this event, only 410 were in place. Many simply could not get there, and a number of regions simply refused to send their delegates and did not want to to link their future destiny with a united Russia. So it wasn’t legitimate anyway - it simply didn’t have a quorum.

Power "was lying in the street", and to take it, it was enough just decisiveness - which the Bolsheviks had in abundance.

Who could have done this besides the Bolsheviks, and what would be the result of such actions? And most importantly, on whom could he rely not only in seizing, but also in retaining power?

There was, of course, a variant of a military dictator - some Kornilov … He could well seize power, relying on the officer corps loyal to him. But he could hardly have kept the country with the forces of a disintegrated, mostly peasant army. Especially in the context of the ongoing war with Germany. The peasants did not want to fight, they wanted to redistribute the land.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts, the processes of creating national bodies were taking place and widespread nationalist propaganda was carried out. Under the Republic and without the Bolsheviks, the territories of Finland, Poland, Bessarabia, the Baltic states would have gone. Ukraine would definitely leave: it has already formed its own state administration bodies - the Rada, which declared its independence. The Caucasus would have left, the lands inhabited by the Cossacks would have gone, the Far East would have fallen off.

There was another problem. The fact is that even before the start of the war, the tsarist government took on quite large debts and it was the presence of these debts that became one of the reasons for Russia's participation in the First World War. Any conventional (claiming continuity with the Russian empire) government had to recognize these debts. Later, during the civil war, this problem was one of the reasons for the split of the white movement, because the whites continued to build up debt, and the smartest of them wondered - "what exactly are we fighting for"? In order to get a ruined country, which was in debt, as in silks?

The Bolsheviks are the only ones who have found the very foothold here. These were the Soviets - grassroots power structures that spontaneously formed everywhere in Russia after the February revolution. All other political forces pinned their hopes on the Constituent Assembly, which was supposed to somehow (it is not clear how) make the administrative structures left over from the Empire work, and the Soviets were seen as a temporary form. It was the slogan "All power to the Soviets" that ensured the support of the Bolsheviks from numerous councils of all levels, including those on the national outskirts, and the slogan "Land to the peasants" and the end of the war - at least the neutrality of the peasantry and the army. However, then the Bolsheviks broke all their promises - they took power from the Soviets and the land from the peasants, but that was a completely different story.

The reader can try to simulate the development of the situation himself in the event of the absence or defeat of the Bolsheviks. But, in our opinion, the situation would be disappointing in any case - the Empire would almost certainly collapse, and the rest would be burdened by the burden of huge debts that blocked any possibility of development.

Now let's move on to the global level of describing the situation and describe the economic state of Russia

You can often hear the expression “Russia, which we have lost” from monarchists. Arguments are given that at the beginning of the 20th century Russia was a dynamically developing country: industry was growing, and the population was growing rapidly. In particular, DI. Mendeleevexpressed the idea that by the end of the 20th century, the population of Russia should have been 500 million people.

In fact, rapid demographic growth (driven by the introduction of minimal medicine and hygiene concepts) has been a great weakness in Russia. The growth of the population mainly took place in the countryside, there was little suitable for cultivation and it was becoming less and less. According to the calculations of that time, even if we take and redistribute among the peasants allland (state, landlord, etc.), the land for the peasants for a good life would still not be enough, while all the positive effect of the redistribution of land among the peasants would be offset by the rapid growth of the population.

Based on the calculations, it was concluded that in order to stabilize the situation in agriculture, it was necessary to “remove” 15-20 million people from the land.

Thus, no amount of economic growth, however good, could solve the demographic problem. In cities, 100 thousand, 300 thousand, even half a million jobs could appear annually, but it was impossible to provide jobs for 15-20 million “extra” people. Even if the revolution had not occurred in 1917, the demographic problem would still sooner or later have made itself felt.

What was the basis for the rapid economic growth of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century? Interaction with Western countries according to the monocultural model. Russia participated in the world grain trade, received money from this, and with this money, with the help of various protectionist measures, with the help of, among other things, state financing of industry, it developed its economy.

What is the fundamental problem of market interaction between a developing country and developed countries according to a monocultural model?

Consider a situation like this: a developing country enters into trade with a developed country.

If trade is intensive, then over time it captures new and new participants within the state, each of whom begins to understand their benefits. The number of people in a developing country who understand the benefits of the market is growing and becoming significant in the total population. This situation is typical for a small country in which market interaction can immediately cover a large group of the population.

What happens if the country is large and trade cannot reach a large enough share of the population quickly enough? Those who engage in trade benefit from it; those who do not participate in trade are forced to endure hardships. For example, if bread begins to be sold abroad, then prices for bread begin to rise in the domestic market, and for those who do not sell bread, the situation begins to worsen. Thus, in the state, some strata of the population have a positive attitude towards the market, while others - a negative one, and everything already depends on the ratio of satisfied and dissatisfied in the state.

Russia, as we know, is a big country. For this reason, only those who had access to foreign and domestic markets traded in bread (the railways, which were built to ensure the logistics of the grain trade, did not reach all regions in Russia). Thus, a narrow layer of people was formed who understood the profitability of the market and a fairly large layer of people who suffered from market relations.

At the same time, the country was under significant demographic pressure. It was necessary to send 15-20 million people somewhere, but the industry could not take everyone at once. It turns out that too large a share of the population remained outside the border of market development, and its problems were only growing.

How the authorities tried to solve this problem, in particular, what was the program Stolypin? He said: let people separate into farms and cuts, and the surplus population can master Siberia.

The main goal of the reforms was to introduce capitalism and the market in agriculture and increase productivity by transferring land to “effective owners”. But, as we said above, market reforms initially benefit only a small part of the population involved in the market, and for the rest - they worsen the situation and increase social tensions. What actually happened.

And as it was established, the practice of resettlement of the population to Siberia did not solve the problem of demographic pressure. Some people really moved there and began to develop new lands, but many of those who tried to resettle decided to return. And the very 20-30 million people would not have thwarted Simbir.

As long as the community existed, the problem of “superfluous” people was not so acute, because it could provide them with some minimum content. With the implementation of Stolypin's program and the partial disintegration of the community, this problem became more acute.

Where could the “extra people” go? They went to the city. However, despite the rapid economic growth, cities could not take over all the people, so many of them became unemployed and thus cities became hotbeds of revolution.

What other threats existed for the tsarist regime? The fact is that the tsar was in permanent conflict with the emerging capitalist class. There was economic growth, its own industry developed at the very least. The capitalists wanted to make some decisions, to participate in politics, they were big enough, they had their own interests. However, these interests were not represented in the structure of the state in any way.

Why did the capitalists finance political parties, even the Bolsheviks? Because the capitalists had their own interests, and the tsarist government completely ignored them. They wanted political representation, but they were not given it.

That is, the problems the country faced were disproportionately greater than any economic success. Therefore, the revolution was in many respects inevitable, since 1912 revolutionary sentiments grew steadily, the growth of which was only temporarily interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.

The next important question in turn is the shock industrialization of the 1930s

The fact is that among the Bolsheviks there was generally no question of whether industrialization was necessary. Everyone was absolutely convinced that it was necessary, the question was only in the rate of industrialization.

Initially, the following people consistently advocated high rates of industrialization: Preobrazhensky, Pyatakov, Trotsky, then they were joined by Zinovievand Kamenev … In essence, their idea was to "rob" the peasantry for the needs of industrialization.

The ideologist of the movement against accelerated industrialization and for the continuation of the NEP was Bukharin.

After the hardships of the Civil War and the Revolution, the middle layer of the party was very tired and wanted a respite. Therefore, in fact, the Bukharin line prevailed. There was NEP, there was a market, they worked and gave remarkable results: in certain periods, the rate of industrial recovery reached 40% per year.

Separately, it should be said about the role Stalin … He did not have any ideology of his own - he was an absolute pragmatist. All his logic was based on the struggle for personal power - and in this he was a genius.

In the 1920s, Stalin subtly felt the moods of the middle layer of the party (fatigue) and supported them in every possible way, acting as a supporter of the NEP. Thanks to this, he was able to defeat Trotsky with his idea of overindustrialization in an apparatus struggle.

And later, having expelled Trotsky and defeated his supporters, Stalin began to use Trotsky's ideas about accelerating industrialization to fight Bukharin and the "market people", and on this basis he defeated Bukharin, ensuring both absolute personal power and complete unanimity in the party. And only then did he start industrialization on the basis of the ideas of Trotsky and his group.

What is the possible forecast of Russia's economic development without the shock industrialization of the 1930s?

As already mentioned, the economic successes of pre-revolutionary Russia were based on monocultural interaction with developed countries. There was grain export, from the money received through it and thanks to protectionist measures, industry rose, and quite quickly.

Russia was a large, but not the most advanced country that developed according to this model. There was another country that developed according to the same model much faster and more energetically - Argentina.

Looking at the fate of Argentina, we can simulate the fate of Russia. First of all, it should be noted that Argentina had a number of advantages over Russia.

Firstly, she did not participate in the First World War and was able to make a significant profit by selling food that was growing in price.

Second, Argentina was, on average, much wealthier than Russia. The land is more fertile, the climate is better, and the population is smaller.

Third, Argentina was more politically stable. The country is small, the population accepted the market without any problems. If there was a conflict between the peasantry and the state in Russia, there was no such problem in Argentina.

Argentina developed successfully on the basis of a monocultural model prior to the Great Depression. With the onset of a large-scale crisis, food prices have dropped significantly, respectively, the amount of money received from the grain trade has dropped dramatically. Since then, Argentina has practically stalled in its economic development.

She took up ineffective import substitution, which completely ruined her. This was followed by a series of revolutions and regime changes. The country is in debt, Argentina is one of the record-holders among countries in terms of the number of defaults.

At the same time, Russia did not always have enough food to feed its own population; accordingly, it could not significantly increase grain exports. If the industrialization of the 1930s had not occurred, most likely, Russia would have faced an even more sad fate than the fate of Argentina.

One more important question remains: could industrialization pass more smoothly, within the framework of market mechanisms- without dispossession, forced collectivization and related victims?

This issue was also discussed. And this line in the party had strong supporters - the same Bukharin. But from the above economic analysis it clearly follows that no, it could not.

By the end of the NEP, problems with grain procurement began. The peasants refused to sell grain. Although the production of grain was growing, but an increasing share of it went to their own consumption due to the rapid growth of the population. Purchase prices were low, there was no opportunity to raise them. And with an underdeveloped industry, the peasants had nothing special to buy even with this money.

And without large volumes of export grain, there was nothing to buy equipment for the construction of industry. And there was nothing to feed the city - famine began in the cities.

In addition, it was found that even those tractors that began to be produced in the mid-1920s practically do not find a sale - they were too expensive for small farms, and there were few large ones.

It turned out to be a kind of vicious circle that blocked the possibility of rapid development. Which was cut by collectivization and dispossession. Thus, the Bolsheviks killed 4 birds with one stone:

• Received cheap grain for export and provision of the city;
• provided cheap labor for the "construction sites of communism" - unbearable conditions in the countryside forced the peasants to flee to the city;
• created a large consumer (collective farms) capable of efficiently demanding agricultural machinery;
• destroyed the peasantry as the bearer of the petty-bourgeois ideology, turning it into a “rural proletariat”.

For all its cruelty, it seemed to be the only effective solution that allowed for a couple of decades to go the path that developed countries took centuries. Without this, development would have proceeded according to an inertial scenario - essentially the same as we described for the Russian Empire.

Let's summarize

First, the reason for the October Revolution should be considered the complete failure of the Provisional Government, which was unable to stop the disintegration of the country and establish state administration after the fall of the tsarist government.

Secondly, the revolution in Russia had objective reasons and was largely predetermined. The economic problems the country faced were obviously not solvable by the methods available to the tsarist government.

Third, if the industrialization of the 1930s had not taken place in Russia, its fate would have been largely sad: it could forever remain a poor agrarian country.

Of course, the price of shock industrialization was very high - the peasantry, which served as the fuel for this very industrialization, was “destroyed as a class” (many - and physically). But thanks to this, a material base was created that provided a relatively decent life for Soviet people for decades - and we still use the remnants of it.