Therevolutions of 1917–1923 were arevolutionary wave that included political unrest and armed revolts around the world inspired by the success of theRussian Revolution and the disorder created by theaftermath of World War I. The uprisings were mainlysocialist oranti-colonial in nature. Most socialist revolts failed to create lastingsocialist states.[2] The revolutions had lasting effects in shaping the future European political landscape, with, for example, thecollapse of the German Empire and thedissolution of Austria-Hungary.[3]
World War I mobilized millions of troops, reshaped political powers and drove social turmoil. From the turmoil outright revolutions broke out, massive strikes occurred, and many soldiers mutinied. InRussia, theTsarNicholas II abdicated during theFebruary Revolution. The short-lived liberalRussian Provisional Government was formed, but it was overthrown by theBolsheviks in theOctober Revolution, which triggered the bloodyRussian Civil War. ManyFrench soldiersmutinied in 1917 and refused to engage the enemy. InBulgaria,many troops mutinied, and theBulgarian Tsar stepped down. Mass strikes and mutinies occurred inAustria-Hungary, and theHabsburg monarchy collapsed. InGermany, theNovember Revolution led to the end of the German Empire.Italy faced various mass strikes.Turkey experienced a successfulwar of independence. Ireland waspartitioned and theIrish Free State was created. Across the world, various other protests and revolts occurred.[4]
.jpg)
_(14595451159).jpg)
In war-tornImperial Russia, theliberalFebruary Revolution toppled the monarchy. A period of instability followed, and theBolsheviks, a radicalfaction of theMarxistRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with theMensheviks, seized power during theOctober Revolution (1917). The ascendant Bolsheviks soon withdrew from the war with large territorial concessions by theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) and fought their political rivals during theRussian Civil War, including theinvading forces from the Allied Powers. In response toVladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the emergingcommunist state ofSoviet Russia,anti-communist forces from a broad assortment of ideological factions fought against the Bolsheviks, particularly by thecounter-revolutionaryWhite movement and the peasantGreen armies, thevarious nationalist movements inUkraine and other would-be new states like those in SovietTranscaucasia andSoviet Central Asia, theanarchist-inspiredThird Russian Revolution and theTambov Rebellion.[5]
By 1921, exhaustion, the collapse of transportation and markets and threats of starvation made even dissident elements of theRed Army revolt against thecommunist state, such as during theKronstadt rebellion. However, the anti-Bolshevik forces were uncoordinated and disorganised, and all operated on the periphery. The Red Army, operating at the centre, defeated them one at a time and regained control. TheMenshevik party was banned after the Kronstadt rebellion of the same year. The complete failure ofComintern-inspired revolutions was a sobering experience in Moscow, and the Bolsheviks moved fromworld revolution tosocialism in one country: Soviet Russia. Lenin moved to open trade relations with theUnited Kingdom,Weimar Germany, and other major Western countries. Most dramatically, in 1921, Lenin introduced theNew Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed private individuals to own small and medium-sized enterprises. In that process of revolution and counter-revolution, theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) wasofficially created in 1922.[6]
 |
Following the February Revolution, theSocial Democratic Party of Finland organized theRed Guards, made up of a motley crew of labor union activists, anarchists and left-wing activists. The Social Democrats had won an absolute majority in the Finnish parliament with 103 of 200 representatives in the parliamentary elections inJuly 1916. The spring of 1917 was relatively peaceful, although there was a serious food shortage and severe inflation, that angered both businesses and the working class. The anti-socialist political and social groups, especially thenationalists in theYoung Finnish Party had funded and secretly supported theFinnish Jäger Movement, where hundreds of young Finnish students covertly enlisted in theGerman Army to fight theRussian Army on theEastern Front. TheJuly Days in Petrograd aggravated the situation in Finland, and there were tens of thousands of Russian troops in Finland as coastal defence forces, who had organized their ownworkers', sailors' and soldiers' councils across Finnish coastal cities like Helsinki, Turku and Viipuri.
Contrary to the Finnish left, the political Finnish right and anti-socialist politics were split into several factions, with tenant farmers, rural folk and the agrarian base supporting theAgrarian Union, teachers and the liberal city middle class supporting the Young Finnish Party, more conservative and appeasement-minded Finns (regarding theRussification policies), some with many financial ties to Petrograd and Russia supporting theFinnish Party and Finnish Swedes and some nobles supporting theSwedish Folks' Party.
Following Alexander Kerensky's rise to the premiership in the summer of 1917, the end of the Romanov monarchy and chaos in Petrograd, the Finnish parliament tried to establish a law known as "valtalaki", "powers act", which would formally move the role of the now abolished Russian monarch and the Governor General as the Supreme Executive of the Finnish State to either a three-man parliamentary executive council or theFinnish Senate (essentially the Cabinet of the Parliament). The law was debated intensely and no consensus could be established. The more pro-revolution Social Democrats were split before October 1917. Some wanted the law to pass so that the Social Democratic majority in the Finnish Parliament could establish Finland as an independent socialist state, but the problems persisted, such as the Russian military presence, of which thousands were pro-Bolshevik.
In August 1917, the Kornilov Coup severely shuffled the pack in terms of the Helsinki-Petrograd relations. A consensus between the social democrats and the bourgeoisie blocks was established, and they decided to hold new elections in October 1917 as a sort of "first elections" following the abolishment of the Romanov monarchy. In the October elections, the bourgeoisie coalition united and won the majority in parliament. This splintered the internal divide within the SDP even more, as the October revolutions was within weeks of happening and several pro-revolution Finnish Social Democrats were in active conversations with the Bolsheviks in Petrograd, such asOtto Wille Kuusinen,Kullervo Manner andKarl Wiik. The Parliament declared confidence for the bourgeoisie Svinhufvud Senate, which would later ratifyFinland's declaration of independence on December 6, 1917. The speech for the declaration was already given by Svinhufvud to the parliament on December 4.
Partly following anger and rising tensions after the October elections, the Social Democrats called a general strike; one of Finland's only three in history. Otto Ville Kuusinen and Kullervo Manner, as members of the SDP's internal executive council favored revolution now and the SDP's council voted against the decision for revolution in November by only one vote – later Kuusinen regretted this, as he had already named several pro-revolution figures to the council and had support for more. Additionally, tensions were increased when a massacre occurred in Mommila, in which an independent Bolshevik detachment of Russian soldiers stormed a Finnish mansion murdering Finnish businessmanAlfred Kordelin. Future presidentRisto Ryti and his wifeGerda escaped the events at Mommila by mere minutes, fleeing to a nearby forest.
The White Guards started mobilizing following the attack and declared their support for Svinhufvud's Senate.
By mid-January, the country had plunged to chaos. General-Lieutenant Carl Mannerheim had arrived from discharge from Odessa to Petrograd to Vaasa to organize a Finnish army. In mid-January the Svinhufvud Senate declared the White guard to be the legal and official army of the Finnish state. Several members of parliament loyal to the republic and Svinhufvud senate departed to Vaasa, where the White Army's headquarters were to be located. Additionally, the money printing machines of the Bank of Finland were evacuated to Vaasa to continue the production of currency for the Finnish state.
By January 27, 1918, the Red Guards lit the flames atop theHelsinki Workers' House signifying the revolution had begun. The White Army organized in Vaasa managed to disarm thousands of Russian soldiers (with Bolshevik sympathies) in Seinäjoki and Vaasa on January 26 and 27. By February, the Finnish Jägers from Germany had returned to Finland and arrived in Vaasa. By February–March 1918, Reds were in a tough state, as German negotiators (with active contacts by the White Finnish government) during the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty negotiations essentially forced the Bolsheviks to give up rights to Finland, stop supporting the Reds and completely disarm the rest of the Russian soldiers stationed in Finnish land still controlled by the Reds.
In March–April, German forces landed in Hanko, Åland and East Uusimaa region and with a three-pronged attack from the West, North and East, captured Helsinki with Finnish troops. The war essentially ended by May 15, 1918, and the Whites held avictory parade inHelsinki on May 16.
TheLeninist victories also inspired a surge in revolutionary action to achieveworld communism: the largerGerman Revolution and its offspring, like theBavarian Soviet Republic, the neighbouringHungarian Revolution and theBiennio Rosso in Italy in addition to various smaller uprisings, protests and strikes, all of which proved abortive.
The German Revolution however proved decisive in abdication of theGerman Kaiser, as well the end of theGerman Empire and as such came to shape the political future of Europe.[3] It also helped convince lawmakers in the U.K. to start lifting the crippling embargo on the country.[7]
The Bolsheviks sought to coordinate this new wave of revolution in the Soviet-ledComintern, and newcommunist parties separated from their former socialist organisations and the older moderateSecond International. Lenin saw the success of the potential German revolution as being able to end the economic isolation of the newly formed Soviet Russia.[8] Despite ambitions for world revolution, supporters ofSocialism in one country led byJoseph Stalin came to power in the soviet state, institutedbolshevization of theComintern, and abolished it in 1943.[9]
After theSecond World War, theRed Army occupied most ofEastern Europe, and communists came to power in theBaltic states,Poland,Hungary,Czechoslovakia,Romania,Bulgaria andEast Germany.[10]
The aftermath of the First World War in Italy resulted in great levels of unemployment and an economic crisis. For example, by the end of 1920, the Italian lira was worth only one-quarter of its 1914 value and in the first half of 1921, the cost of living for an average working-class family was 560% higher than it had been in 1914.[11] These factors helped cause theBiennio Rosso (or the Two Red Years) which was a period of intense social conflict between Communist revolutionaries and the Italian Kingdom. The rise in working class support for Socialism in this period was rapid and very significant as the Italian Socialist Party increased its membership to 250,000, the major Socialist trade union "The General Confederation of Labour", reached two million members, while the anarchist Italian Syndicalist Union saw up to 500,000 affiliates join.
This period of revolutionary activity was characterised by the creation of factory councils under the control of Communist revolutionaries and Anarcho-Syndicalists.[12] Class conflict also emerged in the countryside, with strikes and clashes across the NorthernPo Valley.
Despite the rising support for revolution in Italy, the revolutionaries were not able to capitalise on the growth of their movement, which resulted in a desire for social change slowly waning and paved the way forMarch on Rome.
After the First World War,Austria-Hungary was dissolved. Its replacement in Hungary was theHungarian Soviet Republic, a socialist state established in March 1919. It was dissolved in early August following defeat in theHungarian–Romanian War.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(March 2022) |
In Ireland, then part of theUnited Kingdom, thenationalistEaster Rising of 1916 anticipated theIrish War of Independence (1919–1921) within the same historical period as this first wave ofcommunist revolution. TheIrish republican movement of the time was predominantly a nationalist andpopulist form ofradical-republicanism, and although it had left-wing positions and included socialists and communists, it was not communist. The Irish and Soviet Russian Republics, nevertheless, found common ground in their opposition to theBritish Empire and established a trading relationship. However, the British historianE. H. Carr later commented that "the negotiations were not taken very seriously on either side".[13] Both theIrish Republic and theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic werepariah states that were excluded from theParis Peace Conference. The resultingIrish Free State was founded in 1922.
The clash between radical republicanism and conservative monarchism was also at the heart of political conflict inGreece. In the years leading up to the war, Greece had participated inBalkan Wars against neighbouring states on nationalist and irredentist grounds. The Great War, by bringing Greece into the victorious side against its old rival,Ottoman Empire, had brought to a head existing tensions between two loose camps of Greek political elites that is known as theNational Schism. On the left, theVenizelists, led byEleftherios Venizelos, wasliberal,republican, progressive and nationalist; favoured France and Britain in foreign policy and sought profound democratising reforms influenced by theRadicals of theThird French Republic and by British Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George. On the right, the monarchists were conservative, clerical and traditionalist; favoured Germany in foreign policy, and supported a powerful political role for the king. Between 1919 and 1922, Greece pursuedwar with Turkey to take advantage of thedissolution of the Ottoman Empire and acquire territory inhabited by ethnicGreeks. Greece's disaster at theBattle of Dumlupınar prompted the discrediting of its conservative and monarchist establishment: the army mutinies and popular uprisings in 1922 led to initially a military coup by republican army officers, followed by the forced abdication of KingConstantine I in 1923 and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of theSecond Hellenic Republic in 1924. That period of instability carried on for the rest of the interwar period, with General Pangalos installed as dictator in the military coup of 1925, a return to democracy under Venizelos in 1928 and the restoration of the monarchy by amilitary coup in 1935.
Spain, despite itsneutrality during the war, was also affected by turmoil between radicalrepublicanism and traditionalistmonarchism. TheRestoration Monarchy of 1874 was a parliamentary regime but a conservative one that underrepresented popular classes and gave the monarch a major political role. A democratising revolution was attempted in 1917 by an alliance of radical republicans, socialists and disaffectedSpanish Armed Forces officers, but it soon failed. After the war, however, critics of the constitutional monarchy grew as the international climate proved favourable to republican or democratising institutional change, and theRestoration state proved unable to resolve a series of challenges brought on by the war, notably a postwar economic slump and renewed anti-imperial action in the colonies. Strike movements proliferated between 1919 and 1923, leading notably to an escalating paramilitary conflict between worker and employer movements in cities such asBarcelona. Meanwhile, Spainwent to war in 1920 to maintain control over the last remnants of itscolonial empire, which culminated in a disastrousdefeat at Annual in 1921, which discredited the constitutional monarchy. Repeated elections failed to produce working majorities in parliament for either establishment party, theFused Liberal Party or theLiberal-Conservative Party, to address the crises. In the face of widespread social unrest and institutional paralysis, GeneralMiguel Primo de Rivera demanded power, and was appointed head of government with dictatorial powers by KingAlfonso XIII. The revolutionary and democratising movements of 1916–22 were forestalled by the installation of amilitary dictatorship that would last until theSecond Republic of 1931.
TheMexican Revolution (1910–1920) degenerated into factional fighting among the rebels by 1915, as the more radical forces ofEmiliano Zapata andPancho Villa lost ground to the more conservative "Sonoran oligarchy" and itsConstitutional Army. TheFelicistas, the last major group of counterrevolutionaries, abandoned their armed campaign in 1920, and the internecine power struggles abated for a time after revolutionary GeneralÁlvaro Obregón had bribed or slain his former allies and rivals alike, but the following decade witnessed the assassination of Obregon and several others, abortivemilitary coup attempts and a massive traditionalist uprising, theCristero War, against the government's persecution ofRoman Catholics.
The revolts of theSette Giugno of 1919 (In English: Seven of June) was a revolt characterised by a series of riots and protests by the Maltese population, initially as a reaction to the rise in the cost of living in theaftermath of World War I and the sacking of hundreds of workers from the dockyard. That coincided with popular demands forself-government that resulted in a National Assembly being formed inValletta at the same time of the riots. That dramatically boosted the uprising, as many people headed to Valletta to show their support for the Assembly. The British forces fired into the crowd, killing four local men. The cost of living increased dramatically after the war. Imports were limited, and as food became scarce prices rose, which made the fortune of farmers and merchants with surpluses to trade.
A countrywide revolution against theBritish occupation of Egypt andSudan was carried out byEgyptians and Sudanese from different walks of life in the wake of the British-ordered exile of the revolutionary leaderSaad Zaghloul and other members of theWafd Party in 1919. The revolution was countered, but nevertheless led to Britain initiating theMilner Mission.[14][15][16] This in turn led to Britain'srecognition of Egyptian independence in 1922 and the implementation of a newconstitution in 1923. Britain, however, maintained great influence over the newly createdKingdom of Egypt. Britain retained control of theCanal Zone andSudan. KingFuad died in 1936, andFarouk inherited the throne at only 16. Alarmed by theSecond Italo-Ethiopian War during whichFascist Italy invadedEthiopia, he signed theAnglo-Egyptian Treaty, which required Britain to withdraw all troops from Egypt by 1949 except at the Suez Canal. During World War II,Allied troopsused Egypt as a major base for its operations throughout the region. TheBritish Armed Forces were withdrawn to the Suez Canal area in 1947, but nationalist anti-British sentiment continued to grow after the war.[17]
The Iraqi Revolt began inBaghdad in the summer of 1920 with mass demonstrations byIraqis, including protests by embittered officers from the oldOttoman Army, against the British who published the new land ownership and the burial taxes at Najaf. The revolt gained momentum when it spread to the largely tribalShia regions of the middle and lowerEuphrates. SheikhMehdi Al-Khalissi was a prominent Shia leader of the revolt. Using heavy artillery and aerial bombardment, the uprising was suppressed by the British.
Sunni and Shia religious communities cooperated during the revolution as well as tribal communities, the urban masses, and many Iraqi officers inSyria. The objectives of the revolution were independence from British rule and the creation of an Arab government. The revolt achieved some initial success, but by the end of October 1920, the British had suppressed the revolt, although elements of it dragged on until 1922. Although the British won militarily, the Iraqis achieved a political victory. Greater autonomy was given to Iraq, withFaisal I of Iraq installed asKing of Iraq. Also, theBritish Mandate for Mesopotamia was cancelled.
Following the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in theArmistice of Mudros and the subsequentTreaty of Sèvres, resistance to both the Ottoman Sultanate and foreign occupying forces ramped up through the formation of theKuva-yi Milliye, irregular militias that fought against the French in what became the Southern Front of the war. Following the occupation of Izmir by Greek forces, theGrand National Assembly (GNA) was formed as a counter-government led byMustafa Kemal Atatürk. The GNA continued to fight against occupying forces, especially the Greeks who marched further into Anatolia, but halted their advance at theBattle of the Sakarya. This was followed by the start of theGreat Offensive which pushed the invading Greek forces out of Anatolia.
The aftermath of the war of independence saw theabolition of the Ottoman sultanate, ending 623 years of Ottoman rule and the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly over Turkey. On October 29, 1923, a Republic was declared in Turkey with Atatürk as its president, who introducedAtatürk's reforms. These were a series of reforms and policies that completely overhauled Turkish society, economy, and government.
