Class 9 Social Science Notes Chapter 2 (Socialism in Europe and the Russian revolution) – India and the Contemporary World-I Book

Alright, let's dive into Chapter 2: 'Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution'. This is a pivotal chapter, not just for understanding modern European history but also for grasping ideologies that shaped the 20th century. Pay close attention, as the concepts and events here frequently appear in various government exams.

Chapter 2: Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution - Detailed Notes

Part 1: The Age of Social Change in Europe

• Context: The French Revolution (late 18th century) opened up possibilities for dramatic societal change. Ideas of individual rights and who controlled social power were widely debated across Europe. However, responses varied.
• Three Main Groups of Thought:
  • Liberals:
    • Wanted a nation tolerant of all religions.
    • Opposed uncontrolled power of dynastic rulers.
    • Argued for representative, elected parliamentary government, subject to laws interpreted by a well-trained, independent judiciary.
    • Limitation: Were not democrats. Did not believe in universal adult franchise (right of every citizen to vote). Felt only men of property should have the vote. Did not support women's suffrage.
  • Radicals:
    • Wanted a nation where the government was based on the majority of a country's population.
    • Supported women's suffrage movements.
    • Opposed privileges of great landowners and wealthy factory owners.
    • Were not against private property but disliked concentration of property in the hands of a few.
  • Conservatives:
    • Initially opposed Liberals and Radicals. After the French Revolution, they accepted that some change was inevitable.
    • Believed the past had to be respected and change should be slow and gradual.
• Industrial Society and Social Change:
  • Industrial Revolution brought men, women, and children to factories.
  • Working hours were long, wages were poor. Unemployment was common.
  • Housing and sanitation were poor in rapidly growing towns.
  • Liberals and Radicals, often factory owners or property holders themselves, sought solutions but believed in the value of individual effort and enterprise. They felt freedom for individuals and investment by the poor could improve society.
• The Coming of Socialism to Europe:
  • Core Idea: Socialists were against private property, seeing it as the root of social ills. They believed individuals owned property for personal gain but didn't care about the welfare of those who made the property productive (workers).
  • Alternative Vision: Society as a whole, not single individuals, should control property. This would ensure more attention to collective social interests.
  • Early Socialists & Ideas:
    • Robert Owen (1771-1858): English manufacturer, sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana (USA). Believed in cooperatives built through individual initiative.
    • Louis Blanc (1813-1882): French socialist, wanted the government to encourage cooperatives and replace capitalist enterprises. Believed cooperatives should be associations where people produced goods together and divided profits according to work done.
  • Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895):
    • Argued industrial society was 'capitalist'. Capitalists owned capital invested in factories, and profit was produced by workers.
    • Believed workers' conditions couldn't improve as long as profit was accumulated by private capitalists.
    • Marx believed workers had to overthrow capitalism and the rule of private property.
    • He advocated for a radical socialist society where all property was socially controlled – a communist society. He believed this would be the natural future society and workers would triumph in their conflict with capitalists.
• Support for Socialism:
  • By the 1870s, socialist ideas spread through Europe.
  • Workers formed associations (like trade unions in England, Germany) to fight for better living and working conditions (e.g., reduced hours, right to vote).
  • Socialist parties were formed: Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany, Labour Party in Britain (by socialists and trade unionists), Socialist Party in France.
  • The Second International (1889): An international body formed by socialist parties to coordinate their efforts.
  • Though socialists never succeeded in forming a government in Europe before 1914, their ideas shaped legislation, and they had strong parliamentary representation.

Part 2: The Russian Revolution

• The Russian Empire in 1914:
  • Ruled by Tsar Nicholas II (an autocrat).
  • Vast empire including Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asian states, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan.
  • Majority religion: Russian Orthodox Christianity (also included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists).
• Economy and Society (Early 20th Century):
  • Predominantly Agrarian: About 85% of the population were agriculturalists. Russia was a major grain exporter.
  • Industry: Pockets of industry, mainly in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Much industry set up in the 1890s due to railway expansion and foreign investment. Coal production doubled, iron and steel output quadrupled.
  • Workers: Often divided by skill. Lived in poor conditions, worked long hours (10-12 hrs, sometimes 15). Government supervised factories but rules were often broken. Workers formed associations despite rules.
  • Peasantry: Cultivated most land, but nobility, crown, and Orthodox Church owned large properties. Peasants resented the nobility (who got land/position through service to Tsar, not local popularity). Russian peasants, unlike French peasants, had no respect for nobility. They wanted noble land. They sometimes refused rent and even murdered landlords (esp. in 1902, 1905).
  • Unique Peasant Commune (Mir/Obshchina): Russian peasants pooled their land periodically, and the commune divided it according to family needs. This made many Russian socialists feel peasants, not workers, would be the main force of revolution.
• Socialism in Russia:
  • All political parties illegal before 1914.
  • Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP): Founded 1898 by Marxists. Operated illegally. Set up newspaper, mobilized workers, organized strikes.
  • Socialist Revolutionary Party: Formed 1900. Focused on peasants' rights, demanded land transfer from nobles to peasants. Differed from Social Democrats on the peasant issue.
  • Split in RSDWP (1903):
    • Bolsheviks (Majority): Led by Vladimir Lenin. Believed in a disciplined party that controlled member numbers and quality. Thought in a repressive society like Tsarist Russia, the party had to be disciplined and organized to lead the revolution.
    • Mensheviks (Minority): Believed the party should be open to all (as in Germany). Favored a more gradual approach.
• The 1905 Revolution:
  • Context: Autocratic Russia, poor worker conditions, Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) defeat, rising prices.
  • Bloody Sunday (22 Jan 1905): A peaceful procession of workers led by Father Gapon reached the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to petition the Tsar. They were attacked by police and Cossacks. Over 100 killed, 300 wounded.
  • Consequences: Sparked widespread strikes, university closures, demands for a constituent assembly by lawyers, doctors, engineers, middle-class workers (Union of Unions).
  • Tsar's Response: Allowed creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma.
  • Aftermath: Most committees and unions declared illegal. Severe restrictions on political activity. Tsar dismissed the first Duma within 75 days, re-elected second Duma within 3 months, then dismissed it too. Changed voting laws to pack the third Duma with conservatives. Liberals and revolutionaries kept out.
• The First World War and the Russian Empire (1914-1917):
  • Initial Support: War was initially popular, people rallied around Tsar Nicholas II.
  • Growing Opposition: As war continued, support thinned. Anti-German sentiments ran high (St. Petersburg renamed Petrograd). Tsarina Alexandra's German origins and poor advisors (like Rasputin) made autocracy unpopular.
  • Military Defeats: Russia suffered shocking casualties on the Eastern Front against Germany and Austria. Defeats demoralized the army. Russian army destroyed crops and buildings while retreating, leading to millions of refugees.
  • Economic Impact: War hit industries badly (German control of Baltic Sea cut supplies). Railway lines broke down. Labour shortages, bread shortages became common. Riots at bread shops were frequent by winter 1916.

Part 3: The February Revolution in Petrograd (1917)

• Context: Winter 1917, grim conditions in Petrograd. Food shortages acute in workers' quarters. Parliamentarians wished to preserve elected government, opposed Tsar's desire to dissolve Duma.
• Events:
  • Feb 22: Lockout at a factory on the right bank of River Neva. Sympathy strikes in other factories. Women led the way (later became International Women's Day).
  • Feb 24-25: Demonstrators dispersed but returned. Cavalry refused to fire on demonstrators.
  • Feb 27: Police headquarters ransacked. Streets filled with people raising slogans (bread, wages, better hours, democracy). Government tried calling cavalry again, but they refused. Soldiers mutinied, joined striking workers. They gathered to form a 'soviet' or council – the Petrograd Soviet.
  • March 2: Tsar abdicated on military commanders' advice. Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government. Russia's future to be decided by a Constituent Assembly, elected by universal adult suffrage.
• Outcome: Monarchy overthrown in February 1917.

Part 4: After February

• Provisional Government: Dominated by army officials, landowners, industrialists. Liberals and socialists worked towards an elected government. Restrictions on public meetings/associations removed. Soviets set up everywhere, but no common system of election.
• Lenin's Return (April 1917): Bolshevik leader Lenin returned from exile. He opposed the Provisional Government.
• April Theses (Lenin's Demands):
  1. War (WWI) be brought to a close.
  2. Land be transferred to the peasants.
  3. Banks be nationalised.
     He also argued the Bolshevik Party should rename itself the Communist Party.
• Growing Bolshevik Influence: Initially, others thought Bolshevik demands too radical. But subsequent developments changed attitudes. Provisional Government failed to address key issues (war continued, land redistribution slow). Workers' movements spread. Factory committees formed. Trade unions grew. Soldiers' committees formed in the army.
• July Days (1917): Popular demonstrations staged by Bolsheviks against Provisional Government were sternly repressed. Many Bolshevik leaders went into hiding or were arrested.
• Kornilov Affair (August 1917): General Kornilov attempted a coup against the Provisional Government. The government, aided by Bolsheviks (who helped organize defence), suppressed it. This event boosted the Bolsheviks' image as defenders of the revolution and exposed the weakness of the Provisional Government.
• Rising Bolshevik Support: Peasants seized land between July-September. By September, Bolsheviks gained popular support, especially in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets.

Part 5: The October Revolution (1917)

• Context: Conflict grew between Provisional Government and Bolsheviks. Lenin feared Provisional Government would set up a dictatorship. He persuaded Petrograd Soviet and Bolshevik Party for a socialist seizure of power.
• Planning: Military Revolutionary Committee appointed by the Soviet under Leon Trotsky to organize the seizure. Date kept secret.
• Events:
  • Oct 24: Uprising began. Pro-government troops sent to seize Bolshevik newspaper buildings and telephone/telegraph offices, protect Winter Palace. Military Revolutionary Committee ordered supporters to seize government offices and arrest ministers. The ship Aurora shelled the Winter Palace. Other ships took over strategic points. By nightfall, the city was under the Committee's control, ministers surrendered.
  • Oct 25: All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd approved the Bolshevik action. Heavy fighting elsewhere (esp. Moscow), but by December, Bolsheviks controlled Moscow-Petrograd area.
• Outcome: Bolsheviks took power.

Part 6: What Changed After October?

• Immediate Bolshevik Actions:
  • Most industry and banks nationalised (Nov 1917).
  • Land declared social property; peasants allowed to seize nobility's land.
  • Large houses partitioned according to family requirements. Old aristocratic titles banned. New uniforms designed for army/officials.
  • Bolshevik Party renamed Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).
• Constituent Assembly: Elections held Nov 1917. Bolsheviks failed to get majority. Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures. Lenin dismissed the Assembly (Jan 1918). He argued the All Russian Congress of Soviets was more democratic.
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918): Despite opposition, Bolsheviks made peace with Germany, ceding large territories.
• One-Party State: Bolsheviks became the only party to contest elections to the All Russian Congress of Soviets (now the Parliament). Russia became a one-party state. Trade unions kept under party control. Secret police (Cheka, later OGPU/NKVD/KGB) punished critics. Many young writers/artists rallied to the Party, but censorship discouraged many.

Part 7: The Civil War (1918-1920)

• Context: Bolshevik land redistribution order led army soldiers (mostly peasants) to desert and go home. Non-Bolshevik socialists, liberals, supporters of autocracy condemned the uprising.
• Sides:
  • Reds: The Bolsheviks.
  • Whites: Pro-Tsarists, supported by foreign powers (France, Britain, USA, Japan – worried about socialism). Also included non-Bolshevik socialists.
  • Greens: Socialist Revolutionaries, controlled large parts of Russian Empire, fought both Reds and Whites. Often peasant bands defending local interests.
• Course: Whites often took harsh steps against peasants who seized land, losing popular support. Bolsheviks succeeded due to cooperation with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim jadidists (Muslim reformers). However, Bolshevik colonists often suppressed local nationalism in Central Asia (e.g., massacre in Khiva).
• Outcome: By Jan 1920, Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire. They succeeded due to nationalisation, land policies, Red Army discipline (under Trotsky), harsh suppression of opposition ('War Communism'), and disunity among opponents.

Part 8: Making a Socialist Society

• Economic Policy:
  • During Civil War, industries/banks kept nationalised. Peasants permitted to cultivate seized land. Centralised planning process introduced. Officials assessed economy and set targets for a five-year period (Five-Year Plans). First two Plans (1927-32, 1933-38) focused on industrial growth.
  • War Communism (Civil War period): Harsh measures, grain requisitioning. Very unpopular.
  • New Economic Policy (NEP) (1921): Introduced by Lenin as a temporary measure after the Civil War and famine. Allowed peasants to sell surplus grain, permitted small-scale private businesses. A partial retreat from socialist principles to revive the economy.
• Stalinism and Collectivisation (Late 1920s onwards):
  • Context: NEP period saw some economic recovery but also grain supply problems in towns (1927-28). Stalin (who led party after Lenin's death in 1924) believed rich peasants (kulaks) and traders were holding stocks hoping for higher prices.
  • Collectivisation Programme (1929): Party forced all peasants to cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz). Land and implements transferred to collective ownership. Peasants worked land, profit shared.
  • Resistance: Peasants resisted fiercely, destroyed livestock. Cattle numbers fell drastically. Severe repression by Stalin's government. Many deported or exiled.
  • Consequences: Despite collectivisation, production didn't increase immediately. Bad harvests (1930-33) led to one of history's worst famines (4 million+ deaths).
  • Industrialisation: Five-Year Plans led to rapid industrial growth (oil, coal, steel). New factory cities built. However, rapid construction led to poor working conditions initially. Crèches established in factories for women workers. Cheap public healthcare provided. Model living quarters set up (but effect uneven due to limited resources).
  • Political Repression (The Great Purge): Stalin consolidated power ruthlessly. Critics of Collectivisation, Five-Year Plans, or Stalin's leadership were repressed. By 1939, over 2 million were in prisons or labour camps. Many innocent professionals accused of 'conspiracy' and executed.

Part 9: The Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and the USSR

• Inspiration: Existing socialist parties elsewhere didn't wholly approve of Bolshevik methods, but the possibility of a workers' state fired imaginations globally. Communist parties formed worldwide (e.g., Communist Party of Great Britain).
• Comintern (Communist International): An international union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties formed by Bolsheviks.
• Support for Colonial Peoples: USSR supported and encouraged colonial peoples to follow their experiment. Many non-Russians participated in the Conference of the Peoples of the East (1920) and the Comintern. Some received education in USSR's Communist University of the Workers of the East.
• Mixed Legacy by 1950s: By WWII, USSR had given socialism a global face and world stature. However, by the 1950s, it was acknowledged within the country that the style of government wasn't keeping with ideals of the revolution. While industries and agriculture developed, essential freedoms were denied, and development projects carried out through repressive policies. USSR lost international reputation as a socialist country, though socialist ideals were rethought in various ways globally.

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

1. Which group in early 20th century Europe wanted a government based on the majority of the population and supported women's suffrage?
   a) Liberals
   b) Conservatives
   c) Radicals
   d) Socialists

2. Who were the 'kulaks' targeted during Stalin's collectivisation program?
   a) Factory workers demanding higher wages
   b) Well-to-do peasants
   c) Members of the nobility who lost land
   d) Critics within the Communist Party

3. The event known as 'Bloody Sunday' (1905) involved:
   a) The storming of the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks.

   • b) A peaceful procession of workers being fired upon by the Tsar's forces.
     c) The assassination of Tsar Nicholas II.
     d) A mutiny by sailors on the battleship Potemkin.

4. What were Lenin's key demands upon his return to Russia in April 1917, collectively known as the 'April Theses'?
   a) Continue the war, distribute land to nobles, keep banks private.
   b) End the war, transfer land to peasants, nationalise banks.
   c) Establish a monarchy, suppress the Soviets, ally with Germany.
   d) Support the Provisional Government, delay land reform, focus on industry.

5. The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP) split in 1903 into which two factions?
   a) Reds and Whites
   b) Liberals and Conservatives
   c) Bolsheviks and Mensheviks
   d) Socialists and Communists

6. What was the main purpose of the 'Duma' created after the 1905 Revolution?
   a) To overthrow the Tsar immediately.
   b) To act as an elected consultative parliament.
   c) To lead the Russian army in World War I.
   d) To manage the collectivisation of agriculture.

7. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) was signed between Russia and which country?
   a) Britain
   b) France
   c) Germany
   d) United States

8. Which policy, introduced by Lenin in 1921, allowed peasants to sell surplus grain and permitted some private trade?
   a) War Communism
   b) Five-Year Plan
   c) Collectivisation
   d) New Economic Policy (NEP)

9. Who led the Red Army during the Russian Civil War?
   a) Vladimir Lenin
   b) Joseph Stalin
   c) Leon Trotsky
   d) Tsar Nicholas II

10. The international organisation created by the Bolsheviks to promote communist revolutions worldwide was known as:
    a) The Second International
    b) The League of Nations
    c) The Comintern (Communist International)
    d) The United Nations

Answer Key for MCQs:

1. c) Radicals
2. b) Well-to-do peasants
3. b) A peaceful procession of workers being fired upon by the Tsar's forces.
4. b) End the war, transfer land to peasants, nationalise banks.
5. c) Bolsheviks and Mensheviks
6. b) To act as an elected consultative parliament.
7. c) Germany
8. d) New Economic Policy (NEP)
9. c) Leon Trotsky
10. c) The Comintern (Communist International)

Make sure you understand not just the events but also the underlying ideologies (Liberalism, Radicalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Communism) and the key figures involved. This chapter lays the groundwork for many global events that followed. Good luck with your preparation!