Among the most ferocious revolutions of the 20th century, one with consequences that still resonate today, was the Bolshevik Revolution. It’s often forgotten, however, that Russia did not move immediately from an old-world monarchy to become a communist state. There was an in-between reform period led by Alexander Kerensky. He took power with great hopes that he would end the war and inflation. He failed to achieve that reform; quite the opposite. The result was devastation.
There are lessons here for any reformist government. The problem is rarely that they go too fast. The historical evidence shows the opposite. When an outsider takes power with a mandate for change that comes directly from the people, he had better get his priorities right and act. Kerensky’s task was to end the war, stop the draft, and end the economic sufferings. He failed, and millions died as a result.
The film is unforgettable in so many ways. It includes some of the best romantic fight scenes I’ve ever seen, not least because they paralleled the actual offscreen lives of Beatty and Keaton. The portrayals of figures such as Max Eastman, Eugene O’Neill, and Emma Goldman are very convincing.
In terms of culture and politics, the film provides a richer education than you can get from 50 books on the topic of the Progressive Era, the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the heady brew of interwoven cultural issues such as women’s suffrage, birth control, abortion, free love, and the beginnings of the organized socialist movement in the United States.
The account of the many splits on the American Left in those days helps people understand why the history of the International Workers of the World (Wobblies) is something that needs to be understood.
I’ve never been sympathetic to the Bolsheviks versus the old regime in Russia, but the scenes here from the revolution are completely inspired and touch the heart of anyone who agrees with Thomas Jefferson on the positive need for revolution from time to time. The portrayals of both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky seem authentic and thrillingly so.
That sense you get that you are watching the real thing is enhanced by the extended interviews with people who actually knew both Reed and Bryant. They all have strong opinions. They are wise. They are insightful. We hear from communists and anti-communists, socialites and politicians, working-class philosophers and credentialed academics. It is a beautiful mix.
From a political perspective, the film offers a devastating turnaround judgment on the results of revolution. Goldman tries to talk some sense into Reed in the years following and explains that millions have died from starvation, that nothing works right, and that the vanguard of the proletariat has become a centralized police state.
Reed won’t listen. He explains back to her that the socialist revolution requires terror, murder, and firing squads. It is too late for reform, he has decided. Now is the time for something radically different.
Here is the exchange, with Maureen Stapleton playing Goldman:
And here we come to understand something of the strange mind of the dedicated ideologue, so dogmatic in his adherence to a creed that nothing can shake his faith, not even the deaths of millions and millions of people. His doubts about the revolution and the Communist Party crystallize only when one of his speeches is edited. So he can turn a blind eye to holocaust, but a violation of his freedom to speak becomes an intolerable act. Some moral compass!
At the same time, we are given a more complicated picture at the ground level of what drove the actual events of the Bolshevik Revolution. The film narrative focuses heavily on the Russian war with Germany and what the draft and massive death meant for the Russian people. It prepared them to embrace radical solutions. Lenin, in particular, was more hardcore than anyone else on the need to end the war. In real life, there was another complicating factor here: Hyperinflation had also wrecked the economy. Hopelessness is what drove the Russians into the hands of the communists.
Stateside, we discover that the Great War, the gigantic military machine erected in the United States to fight it, the betrayal of the antiwar cause by Woodrow Wilson, the emergence of a capitalist class working together with the state machinery, and censorship were the issues that emboldened the socialist movement in the United States.
The film brilliantly portrays how one form of despotism prepares the way for another—in both the United States and Russia. One side gives the motivation and creates the sense of desperation and moral outrage that leads people to embrace utterly implausible solutions such as communism.
Had there been no war and inflation in Russia or had Kerensky’s reform actually been effective, there would have been no revolution, and we would have been spared 72 years of communism. In the United States, the communists and socialists would have remained a small group of activists with no rallying cry, no victim story, and no tale of capitalist evil to tell to the public and the workers.
Much-needed reforms pursued without vigor can lead to demoralization and revolution, with unpredictable and devastating results. It’s true in all times, especially in times when there is a genuine loss of trust.
The entire story makes an interesting parallel with our own times. There is rising dissatisfaction with the pace of Trump’s domestic reforms. Foreign policy poses other gnarly problems, including preexisting and long-lasting allies that are in tension with an America First focus. These frustrations do seem to have moved from simmer to boil.
