The October Revolution

The October Revolution was intended as a prelude to world revolution. Initial disappointment at the failure of other countries to follow suit led to an abrupt change of policy at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, when Lenin settled for a compromise peace with the Kaiser in order to give time for the creation of a military base for the revolution until Germany was ripe for revolt. The invasion of Russia by the armies of Japan and the Entente Powers, in May and August 1918 respectively, temporarily destroyed the tactic of accommodation with the capitalist world. The option of revolutionary war in the style of Napoleon was thus forced upon the Bolsheviks as a matter of survival. A war of offence against the West therefore became inseparable from the needs for defence. The question hidden behind the ensuing turmoil was the direction of foreign policy once military hostilities ceased. Would Soviet Russia revert to the ‘Brest viewpoint’ of accommodation? Or, having tasted the excitement, would Moscow once again exercise the option of revolutionary war?

The Bolsheviks had been conducting a fierce campaign to spread the revolution among invading Allied troops since the autumn of 1918 under the Central Executive Committee’s Department of Propaganda, which was then moved over into the Communist International (Comintern) on 25 March 1919. The Comintern was thus always conceived and created for more than just furthering the worldwide proletarian revolution: protecting and enhancing the security of Soviet Russia (from 1923 the USSR) was no less a priority.