Two Takes on the Russian Revolution of 1905: Lenin versus Weber

After the Bolshevik-led Russian Revolution of October 1917, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, its leading protagonists, would often say that the Revolution of 1905 served as a “dress rehearsal.” On the twelfth anniversary of the beginning of the latter, January 9 (22), 1917, the original “Bloody Sunday,” Lenin addressed a meeting of young workers in Zurich, Switzerland, to commemorate that momentous event. He had no idea as he spoke that within weeks Russia’s toilers would be making history again. His focus was on the lessons of 1905, to ensure that his audience was politically equipped for whatever lay ahead. Toward the end of the talk, he mentioned another balance sheet on the upheaval. “The bourgeoisie likes to describe the Moscow uprising [December 1905] as something artificial, and to treat it with ridicule. For instance, in German so-called scientific literature, Herr Professor Max Weber, in his lengthy survey of Russia’s political development, refers to the Moscow uprising as a “putsch.”