The "Epochal Year" 1917

• Epochal year


  A year in which a change of paradigm takes place
• 1917 was an epochal year
• USA entering World War I


  • One of the two superpowers whose rivalry would dominate the 20th century entered the world stage
• Soviet Union coming into existence

  • One of the two superpowers whose rivalry would dominate the 20th century entered the world stage
• Motives for USA entering World War I

  • Political
  • Diplomatic
  • Economic
• USA entering World War I


  Marked a clear change in US foreign policy in contrast to the Monroe Doctrine or the Roosevelt Corollary
• Unrestricted submarine warfare


  German submarines would attack any merchant ships or freighters without warning
• On 7 May 1915, the British passenger ship Lusitania was sunk off the Irish coast, leaving more than 100 American passengers dead
• Germany abandoned unrestricted submarine warfare after the Lusitania incident, but it was resumed in January 1917
• The USA severed diplomatic relations with Germany and the US ambassador to Germany left Berlin on 3 February 1917
• After debates in Congress, the USA entered the war on the side of the allied powers on 6 April 1917
• Zimmermann Telegram


  A telegram sent by Arthur Zimmermann (at the German Foreign Ministry) to the German ambassador to Mexico, offering Mexico the return of land seized from it by the USA if it joined the war on the side of the central powers
• The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted by the British, and the decoded version had a huge impact on American public opinion, thus making entry into war more likely
• Tsars


  Rulers of the Russian Empire
• Autocracy


  A system of government in which one person has unlimited and unchecked power
• The tsar and the nobility still ruled over the people in an autocracy, the population had no or but very limited options to participate politically
• Serfdom of the peasants had only been abolished in 1861
• In 1905, the first revolutionary attempt was put down, after the situation of the people had deteriorated further when Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War
• Tsarism was only able to survive the crisis of 1905 because of a clampdown by the army on the one hand, and because of concessions the tsar made, namely the creation of a constitution and the people's representation in parliament, in the duma
• The strains posed by the First World War led to the collapse of the Russian army, the economy and the supply of the cities, causing the tsar to lose his authority completely
• In February 1917, mass demonstrations and strikes forced the tsar to abdicate, and a provisional government took over control with representatives chosen from the duma
• Simultaneously, workers', peasants' and soldiers' councils (the Russian word for 'council' is 'soviet') were formed that were intended to check this provisional government
• Demands of the workers', peasants' and soldiers' councils

  • Immediate end to the war
  • Land reform in favour of the peasants
  • Control of the workers over the factories
  • Immediate summoning of a constituent assembly
• The provisional government strove to implement reforms according to the western European model, but could or would not tackle the most urgent problems for the population, such as land reform
• In consequence, Lenin and his party, the Bolsheviks, gained more and more supporters
• In April 1917, Lenin had already foreseen a socialist revolution under the workers' leadership in his April Theses, placing the issues of "peace" and "land" at the centre of his demands
• By September 1917, the Bolsheviks were able to win the majority in the councils
• In the night of 24 to 25 October 1917, troops of the Petrograd Soviet (in which the Bolsheviks had the absolute majority) stormed the Winter Palace, the seat of the provisional government
• Decrees issued by the Second All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils on 25 October 1917


  • Decree on Peace, offering the warring countries immediate talks about a "just and democratic peace" without territorial losses
  • Decree on Land, which dispossessed the landowners without compensation and granted the use of the land to everyone who wanted to cultivate it by themselves
  • Establishment of a Council of People's Commissars which was intended to govern the country under Lenin's leadership until the summoning of the constituent assembly
• The two Russian Revolutions of 1917 had turned Russia into the Soviet Union, from an autocracy to a council democracy
• In the days and weeks after the revolutions of 1917, the Bolsheviks created the legal foundations for the implementation of their demands and promises, held elections for the constituent assembly, and decreed the nationalization of banks, and the democratization of the army and gender equality
• The new government ended the war with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918 in which the Soviet Union lost one third of its population and more than 80% of its iron and coal deposits as a result of territorial cessions
• Communism


  The utopia in which the exploitation of man is overcome by man himself and which enables everyone to develop their full potential
• The driving force behind the Russian Revolution was the Russian workers' movement which in turn was a part of the international socialist movement
• The evaluation of and way of dealing with the Russian Revolutions led to a division of the workers' movements into socialist and communist wings
• The Communist International, a union of the parties created in Moscow in March 1919, saw the October Revolution as the beginning and the starting point of a socialist world revolution, with the Soviet Union being the cradle of communism whose policies were to be supported
• Marxism-Leninism


  The state ideology of the Soviet Union, based on the ideas of Marxism developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and refined by Lenin
• Marxism-Leninism remained the state ideology of the Soviet Union until the disintegration of the eastern communist countries in the wake of the "epochal year" 1989