Challenges

It’s impressive the number of challenges that the Russian Revolution faced:

1. Russia was basically a feudal country in 1905; only 10% of the population lived in large cities and received a salary. In the countryside, lands were concentrated in the hands of a few landowners and the nobility. Mechanization was almost nonexistent. Peasants worked on their own land or on the landlords’ lands and, in return, paid a portion of their production as rent.
2. The First World War caused Russia to lose approximately 2 million people; 5 million were wounded, and 2.5 million were reported missing or became prisoners of war. Russia’s population was approximately 170 million, with about 85 million being of economically active age, and of these, approximately 42.5 million were men. Due to the war, the economically active male population decreased to about 33 million.
3. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918, had the following impacts: Russia had to cede Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, thus losing 13% of its population, 50% of all its industries, and 90% of its coal reserves. Therefore, the economically active male population of Russia was reduced to approximately 22 million. Additionally, Russia had to pay 6 billion in German gold marks, which, through calculations made by Copilot, would correspond today to about US\$130 billion. Furthermore, it was forced to deliver grains and agricultural products, mineral resources and raw materials, industrial and manufactured products, as well as grant access to and control of infrastructure such as railways and ports.
4. In agricultural matters, the Bolsheviks were forced to form an alliance with the peasants to keep the revolution alive and, for that, had to give them land instead of collectivizing land use, which would have been ideal.As a result, and with the NEP (New Economic Policy), a class of rich farmers (“kulaks”) was created that even took up arms against the Bolsheviks who, due to the calamity, had requested that surplus production be made available to the population. When they joined the Whites, however, they soon returned to support the Bolsheviks upon realizing that the Whites wanted to reclaim their lands. Moreover, since the revolution did not extinguish private property immediately, some peasants hid their production or even began to produce only for their own subsistence. The specialists who knew how to organize production sabotaged the revolution; therefore, the government did not know what was being produced, had no production estimates, and did not know how to distribute food in the cities. These specialists continued to receive their salaries from the big bourgeoisie, and those who agreed to work were paid exorbitant amounts.
5. The disorganization of the economy in the production of goods was enormous. A clear example is the telephone exchanges in Russia, where the old employees refused to work or sabotaged the telephone lines. Only a few workers agreed to work, and some volunteers were recruited; by learning from those who participated, they gradually learned and restored communications. In general, all sectors went through these sabotages, since the revolution only nationalized a few sectors at first—not that they did not plan to nationalize everything. Only after the “Red Terror” was the economy completely nationalized, and the saboteurs were punished accordingly. It was curious to discover that the saboteurs were released after only 1 or 2 days. Only after a long time did they apply appropriate punishments to these “people.”
6. The Civil War was even more impressive. The Bolsheviks did not have an established army, being constituted from the remnants of the Russian army that fought in the First World War. Even with the First World War still ongoing, 27 nationalities sent people to form an army of 1 million people to encircle Russia, preventing any external trade and gaining territory day by day. Even so, led by Trotsky, they created and rearmed an army of 5 million people. Due to economic conditions, food prioritization was for the army, which further complicated the lives of those who did not belong to it.