Abstract
The Russian Revolution of 1917 had a profound impact on the anti-colonial struggles all over the world. Its impact on the Indian Freedom Movement was also far reaching. None other than Gandhi described it as “the greatest event” of the century and a “great lesson” for India. The Revolution brought home to the Indian freedom fighters and the revolutionaries, the efficacy of alternative means to resist autocratic ways. This was a marked departure from the Gandhian notion of non-violent resistance. The Russian Revolution and the post revolution ideologies increased the velocity of the Indian national movement by providing an ideological umbrella to both the moderates and the extremists viewpoints within the freedom movement. It played a very positive role in successfully transforming the character of the freedom movement from an elite-driven movement to a movement led and inspired by the concerns of the workers and peasants. The chapter highlights the influence of the Russian Revolution on significant ideological developments within the Indian freedom movement and its impact on the course of Indian politics during that period.
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Notes
- 1.
Two revolutions swept through Russia in 1917 and resulted in the uprooting of centuries of imperial rule and the formation of the first working-class state in the world, that is, the Soviet Union. The first was the February Revolution (dated March 8–16 in the Gregorian calendar) and the second was the October Revolution (dated November 7–8 in the Gregorian calendar). The October Revolution is also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, named after the Bolshevik Party led by V.I. Lenin. The Bolshevik party came into existence in 1903 as a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
- 2.
For details, see Lenin on the National and Colonial Questions, Three Articles, Peking, Foreign Language Press, 1967 (Reprinted by Red Star Publishers).
- 3.
The theory of “Drain of Wealth” was put forward by Dadabhai Naoroji, also known as the “Father of Indian Nationalism”, in 1867 in his book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, in which he said that the British rule was completely draining India. He was the first Asian MP in the British Parliament.
- 4.
The Revolt of 1857 challenged and ended the rule of the British East India Company in India and was replaced by nine decades of direct British rule or British Raj.
- 5.
Fought over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea, the Russo-Japanese war (1905–1906) was fought between Russia and Japan. Russia’s multiple defeats in the war contributed to domestic unrest that catalyzed the Revolution of 1905. The Japanese victory in the war was the first major military victory of an Asian power over a European one, in the modern era.
- 6.
Though not a coordinated revolution, the 1905 Revolution was the outcome of mass political and social unrest through vast areas of the Russian Empire. It mainly manifested in the form of anti-Tsarist protests, industrial strikes, peasant unrest and military mutinies. It resulted in constitutional reforms that led to the establishment of the State Duma, a multiparty system and the Russian Constitution of 1906.
- 7.
Young India, May 4, 1921.
- 8.
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Acknowledgment
This article was first published in the July 28, 2018, issue of the Economic and Political Weekly, 53 (29).
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Upadhyay, A. (2021). Russian Revolution in Perspective: Reflections on Its Impact on the Indian Freedom Struggle. In: Chenoy, A.M., Upadhyay, A. (eds) Hundred Years of the Russian Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4785-4_6
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