Chapter 3. The Disastrous War; Victory of a Revolutionary Strike The waves raised by the events of January 1905 were not to be calmed right away. This time the entire country had been jolted. From Spring, 1905 on, the general situation of the Czarist regime became increasingly untenable. The main reason was the bitter defeat experienced by Czarist Russia in its war against Japan. This war, which began in February, 1904, accompanied by a great deal of arrogance and carried out largely with the aim of stimulating nationalistic, patriotic, and monarchist feelings, was hopelessly lost. The Russian army and fleet were totally defeated. Public opinion openly blamed the incompetence of the authorities and the degeneration of the regime for the failure. Not only masses of workers, but other strata as well, were rapidly seized by a growing anger and spirit of revolt. The effect of the defeats — which followed one another in rapid succession —...
And now, our philosophical parenthesis concluded, let us return to the events [involved in all this]. Part II. About the October Revolution Chapter 1. Bolsheviks and Anarchists Before October Here we find occasion to go back and review the respective positions of the Bolsheviks and the Anarchists prior to the October Revolution. The position of the Bolsheviki on the eve of that revolution was characteristic. It is well to recall, however, that Lenin’s ideology and the position of his party had changed considerably since 1900. Aware that the Russian laboring masses, once started in revolt, would go far and would not stop at a bourgeois solution — especially in a country where the bourgeoisie hardly existed as a class — Lenin and his party, in their desire to anticipate and dominate the masses in order to lead them, ended by formulating an extremely advanced revolutionary program. They now envisaged a strictly Sociali...