I Can See Warsaw From Here; A Brief Review of Russian History
Posted: Thursday, November 10, 2011
by Michael Eza
Russia has been the source of many themes in fictional writing. “Lenin, Trotski and Dzierzynski believed that over-killing was better than running the risk of being over-thrown (Service 107)." This concept is a theme, which runs through almost all of Russian society after the death of Nicholas II in 1917. In 1918 Russia had just been devastated by war, civil unrest, the loss of its ruler, the loss of an important treaty with Britain and the start of a civil war between the Red and what would later become known as The White Army. In 1918 Russia had just experienced two revolutions in February and October of 1917 due to the loss of Nicholas II, beyond that Robert Service points out “Russia had been reduced to the size of medieval Muscovy (Service 102).", due to Japanese, Turkish and American forces occupying various locations in the country. Lenin was able to obtain power over a large portion of the Russian population because of his vision for the working class Russian, and possibly because he was implicit about using “class struggle and civil war as interchangeable terms (Service 101)." This type of propaganda was highly effective at rallying the people in support of opposing many workers rights violations and often if was the bourgeoisie who were cited as the instigators of the war due to their violations.
The Red Army or the Bolshevik party, who were the operators of the Soviet Republic Party, took complete control of Russia in 1919 after the significant uprising known, as The White Army was completely defeated in Kiev in mid-December. After this had happened the Soviets implemented a type of control similar to that issued by the Ancient Roman government of Pax-Romana, whereby the country such as in this case the Ukraine being resistant to losing its independence back to Russia, is allowed to continue to operate and control its population as a sovereign nation, but that it was also now part of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR) and thereby also under the central control of Moscow.
After having reclaimed most of its territory through the RSFSR unions Russia began to desire further and vaster territories and the union continued to use its working class appeal to add on territory by causing class conflicts and then civil war. Beyond a mere political or economical rule this party’s purpose was in part to “introduce atheism by persuasion (Service 116)", and in doing so often many thousands of priests and hundreds of bishops were murdered. The entire region was slowly converted to an anti-Semitic culture and those who did choose a faith were persecuted, sometimes tortured and killed, however the White army was also know for its persecution and killing of religious believers. Then in 1920 a great boost came to the Bolshevik party, that being that “the Supreme Allied Council lifted the economic blockade on the RSFSR (Service 117)." And with that the RSFSR was able to instill a formal dictatorship and continue with its strict adherence to party rules for party members and its “cleansings of the ranks (Service 118)." With this severe amount of repression and political change, massive amounts of civil uprisings occurred throughout Russia and the territories of the RSFSR. The peasants constantly attempted to hoard their production and the army continued to experience deserters and conscription defaulters.
While turmoil ensued the Polish invader Jozef Pilsudski decided to take advantage of the failed state in the Ukraine and did take Kiev in May of 1920. This episode erupted into a full-scale war between RSFSR and Poland. The Ukraine was recaptured and Pilsudski defeated, but this was not enough for the party. This was an opportunity for Lenin to carry his new form of socialization across Europe, undoubtedly in his eyes he saw a better more productive and streamlined world, despite the difficulties this form of government was creating within his own borders. Lenin’s own party leaders advised against the conquest of Europe citing a discontentment in Poland’s working-classes ability or willingness to rise up against the upper-class as The Red army needed for its revolutions to be successful.
Lenin did order the Red Army into Poland and it was in Poland just short of the capitol Warsaw where they were defeated. At the same time this was occurring many changes to the economical policies were proposed and the party became split internally, as the turmoil continued essentially nothing significant within the party changed and economic catastrophe began to move in. With that came more civil unrest and the citizenry and soldiers who were already withdrawing from the party began to rebel against it.
This combination of events and idealisms created the type of over-kill and some-what anti-Semitic ideologies, which are represented Isaac Babel’s short stories from Red Cavalry, however as Babel himself was Jewish the reader could take the position that Babel is attempting to display what it was like for a Jew who had to be anti-Semitic due to social constructs. In addition the civil war and the conquests of the Red Army as well as Lenin’s mission are themes, which are often present in Babel’s writing.
Works Cited
Service, Robert. A History of Modern Russia; From Nicholas II To Vladimir Putin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 2003. Print.
This Article has been viewed 292 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.