young Russians & 1917 Revolution

The October Revolution, which started when the Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace on 25th Oct 1917, promised a new future. It became a radical break with the past of Tsarist aut­ocracy, exploitation and misery. Bolsheviks were later willing to use viol­ence in pursuit of their goals but import­antly, the Bol­sh­eviks galvanised hopes that had gained momentum during 1917. Socialist visions offered an attractive altern­at­ive to the horrid rest­r­ictions of tsarist autocracy, monarchy, nob­il­ity, Church, private ownership and worker exploitation.

The new social and political order of Oct 1917 offered an escape from the inherited world for the oppressed. This is why the Soviet Union continued to be held up as an alternative historic path throughout the C20th, even after its earliest ideals were later corrupt­ed. It offered an alternative to the injustices of the old imperial order, to the cruelties of modern capitalism.

As the Bolsheviks came to power, factory workers rejected the clearest symbol of exploitation: bosses. Awful managers were carted out of the factory doors and dumped. Some workers went on to form factory committees, replacing sym­bols of old authority and implem­enting workers control. At home and work, citizens of the newly formed Soviet republic drank tea and discussed social­ist enfran­chisement.

One section of society was most susceptible to the promise of a new future: youths belonged to the future and had the tend­ency to reject their parents’ old ways. Soviet youth literature prom­ot­ed the idea that life could be rationally redesigned to foster social­ism, reshaping culture and society, with Soviet youths in the vanguard.

My grandfather was a perfect example. Born in 1898 as the third last of a very large group of Russian siblings, he was 19 during the Russian Revolution. He and his siblings were mesmerised by the rise of socialism and the free­dom it offered their impoverished, working class, Jewish family who remembered the pogroms so clearly. He ded­icated the rest of his life to volunteerism, equality of all citizens, provis­ion of community services to ordinary families, and educational facilities for the Jewish community. In Australia he was a core member of the Labour Party.

The communes, in university dormitories or elsewhere, were res­id­ential spaces in which young radicals sought to establish living social­ism. All moneys were placed communally and shared; all possess­ions be­came common property; and each inhabit­ant vow­ed to live in a comradely fashion. By the mid-1920s, many thousands of young activists were ins­p­ired to replicate communal living, mainly in the cities of central Eur­opean Russia. By the later 1920s Komsomol/Communist Youth League saw more and more youths becoming engaged in commune life, providing a space for act­ivist initiative.

The young socialists allocated rooms for collective events, and for leisure activities. Sexism in the alloc­at­ion of tasks had to end. Hence each commune also allocated the cleaning and cooking fairly between the sexes. Replacing private kitchens with mun­icipal canteens in every city and workplace provided better nutrit­ion, released women into the workforce and fostered a fairer social order.

The communes also discussed and experimented with sexual equality and open relat­ion­ships. The issue of children was raised at the weekly discuss­ions, de­ciding that it was best to use contraception for the time being. It was agreed that if children were conceived, they should be considered the offspring of the group. The biol­og­ical parents would have to forego privileged parental over­sight. But after a few months, the commune de­cided that relations between inhabitants should not be entered into lightly, lest personal divisions and animosity set in.