Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia in Russia, like the bulk of the ruling elite and the educated part of the population, was liberal and pro-Western. She was brought up on Western ideas. Some admired liberalism and democracy, others - socialism (Marxism). As a result, the intelligentsia in its mass (there were traditionalists, "pochvenniki", late Slavophiles) played a destructive and at the same time, like other revolutionary groups, a suicidal role.
The intelligentsia in Russia was also a kind of "separate people", which, on the one hand, hated tsarism, criticized its vices, on the other hand, "took care of the people" and dreamed of instilling European order in Russia. It was a kind of social schizophrenia: the intelligentsia believed that it was protecting the interests of the common people and at the same time was terribly far from it. The structure of Western countries was seen as an ideal, from there they took political programs, ideology, utopias. This explains why the Russian intelligentsia was present practically in the ranks of all parties of the forces that took part in the revolution. The intelligentsia was the basis of the liberal-bourgeois parties - the Cadets and Octobrists, and the radical-revolutionary - Socialist-Revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks. Common to these forces was the rejection of the Russian socio-political system (tsarism, autocracy), which was expressed in the general slogan “Freedom! Liberation! " They wanted to eliminate all historically formed "restrictions". It is characteristic that those who appeared on the political scene at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. the movements of the predecessors of both the Bolshevik and the Constitutional Democratic (Cadet) parties from the very beginning put this slogan at the forefront, calling themselves the "Union of the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class (headed by V. I. Lenin) and the" Union of Liberation "(I. I. Petrunkevich).
Liberals and revolutionaries in every way repeated about the hopeless "backwardness" of Russia, or even the dying of the country, which they explained by the "worthless" economic, social and, above all, political system. The Westerners shouted at all (and they controlled most of the press) that Russia, in comparison with the West, was "a desert and a kingdom of darkness." True, after the disaster of 1917, some of them came to their senses, but it was too late. Among them is the famous publicist, philosopher and cultural historian G. P. Fedotov (1886-1951), who in 1904 joined the RSDLP, was arrested, was exiled, but then began to "rule". In the post-revolutionary period, he openly “repented”: “We did not want to bow to Russia … Together with Vladimir Pecherin we cursed Russia, with Marx we hated it … Until recently, we believed that Russia was terribly poor in culture, some kind of wild, virgin field. It was necessary for Tolstoy and Dostoevsky to become teachers of mankind, for pilgrims to come from the West to study Russian beauty, everyday life, antiquity, music, and only then we looked around us."
True, even having “repented”, the former destroyers of “old Russia” believed that it was they who would create the “new Russia”. The same Fedotov declared: “We know, we remember. She was. Great Russia. And she will. But the people, in terrible and incomprehensible sufferings, have lost the memory of Russia - of themselves. Now she lives in us … The birth of the great Russia must take place in us … We demanded self-denial from Russia … And Russia is dead. Atoning for sin … we must abandon disgust for the body, for the material state process. We will rebuild this body."
Thus, we see an amazing picture and social illness of the Russian pro-Western intelligentsia. These same “we” (various Westernizing Februaryists) destroyed old Russia, and then, after “killing” Russia with their help and support from the West, they “looked around” and realized that they had lost a great country. And they immediately decided, having already fled to the West, that only they had the knowledge to “resurrect Russia”. Although the Russian communists coped without them, creating a new project and Soviet civilization, which in the Stalinist period absorbed all the best that was in imperial and tsarist Russia. And from this rotten pro-Western, liberal outgrowth, the current Russian liberals and monarchists were eventually born, like State Duma deputy N. Poklonskaya, who glorify the order of "old Russia", curse the Soviet period and dream of "resurrecting Russia", that is, "ridding" the remnants of the Soviet legacy …
Only a small part of the intelligentsia belonged to the traditionalist-conservatives, “Black Hundreds”. True, there were the most far-sighted leaders among the right-wingers, who warned the tsarist government about a deep crisis, and the danger of participation in a big war in Europe and the inevitability of a social revolution under the current course. They were also the only ones who foresaw the monstrous results of revolutionary upheavals. However, the voice of the right did not hear, they remained on the sidelines of the political life of the capital, although during the years of the First Revolution of 1905-1907. the Black Hundreds had a massive social base. The authorities did not support the rightists and did not accept the reform program they proposed. As a result, in 1917, the right-wingers were practically absent from the political field of Russia and were unable to resist the revolution.
On the whole, almost all trends of the intelligentsia (except for the traditionalists) were charmed by the West, their desire to forcibly turn Russia into a part of the Western world. At the same time, the intelligentsia, since the days of the common folk-populists, tried to "educate" the people, instill in them the "right" ones, and eventually turn the Russians into "right Europeans." Thus, the mass of the Russian intelligentsia was terribly far from the people and even anti-people, since it dreamed of re-coding Russians into Europeans. Therefore, the Russian intelligentsia almost entirely supported the February Revolution, rejoiced at the fall of the autocracy. Without even realizing that in the end the revolutionary chaos will destroy their former life, and a significant part of the intelligentsia will die in the millstones of the revolution or will be forced to flee the country. The intelligentsia was deeply convinced of its own and general prosperity under the coming new order, but it miscalculated, showing its complete blindness.
International and Russian national bourgeoisie
Successful Russian entrepreneurs, bankers and merchants believed that a radical change in the socio-political system would lead them to power, to limitless opportunities, and financed anti-government parties (including the Bolsheviks).
The international (Petersburg) bourgeoisie, which included Russians, Germans, Jews, etc., like the ruling elite and the intelligentsia, was pro-Western in nature. For the most part, she was part of the "elite" of the Russian Empire - financial and industrial, trade, and also in the Masonic lodges. Therefore, the bourgeoisie financed a coup in order to direct Russia along the western path of development. They wanted to overthrow the tsar in order to gain real power and rule a new, bourgeois Russia. Following the example of France or the United States, where all the real power is with the big owners, capitalists, bankers.
The Russian national bourgeoisie, which was formed on the basis of the Old Believer world, had other motives. In the Russia of the Romanovs, after the split, a world of adherents of the old Russian Orthodoxy was formed, and at the beginning of the 20th century they had a powerful social base - about 30 million people. The elite of the Old Believers were entrepreneurs who created capital not by financial speculation and connections with the authorities, but by hard work, creating and accumulating wealth from generation to generation. The Morozovs, Ryabushinskys, Rakhmanovs, Bakhrushins created their capital by hard and long work, and controlled about half of all industrial capital in Russia.
At the same time, the Old Believers hated the Romanov regime. They were for them persecutors of the holy faith, antichrists, who split the church and the people, for a long time they actively repressed the Old Believers, destroyed the patriarchate, made the church part of the state apparatus. Power planted Western abomination. Therefore, the world of Old Believers wanted to destroy the Russia of the Romanovs. The Old Believers and the Old Believers (Russian national) bourgeoisie consistently opposed the government. Therefore, the Old Believer world supported the revolution. However, the revolution also destroyed the huge Old Believer world, the whole parallel Russia.
