The Revolutionary Wave
The end of the Russian-Japanese war in 1905 marked the beginning of a wave of mass strikes and insurrections which took on an international character and at the time appeared to threaten capitalism and class society itself. The working class' response to World War I led to the apex of the period in 1917-1921, although high points of class struggle continued sporadically until the late 1920s, definitively closing with the victory of Franco in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39.
On the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, libcom.org has assembled a large collection of articles commemorating the era. Although we have aimed to include both the breadth and depth of the events this feature is by no means comprehensive. Despite the massive attention given to the Russian Revolution, many of the strikes and insurrections around the world have been almost erased from historical memory.
The failure of the working class to cement it's gains during the period led to a long period of reaction: Stalinism in the USSR; the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Brazil; then the horrific slaughter of the Second World War. It is therefore important to look at both the successes and failures of the period - either due to capitalist reaction or an inability to defend genuine revolutionary activity from the internal counter-revolution of social democracy.
Russia, China and Japan
The 1905 revolution in Russia was the first time that soviets appeared in Russia, and laid much of the ground for the 1917 revolution twelve years later. Japan had won the war, but the terms of the treaty prompted a nationalist riot in Hibiya, Tokyo, this opened up the "Era of Popular Violence", leading to massive transport strikes and insurrections in 1912-14, then the Rice Riots of 1918 as a result of wartime inflation. China saw both class and nationalist struggles during the period, with the Hong Kong strike 1922 and the **Shanghai Commune 1927** being particular high points of the former.
Europe
Closely linked to the Russian Revolution was the Makhnovist movement in the Ukraine, which fought against both the Whites and the Bolsheviks for three years until it was finally crushed. The German Revolution, a year later than Russia's was defeated by the Social Democrats and was perhaps the most tragic defeat of the period. The Hungarian Soviet Republic, the attempted revolution in Finland, and uprisings in Lithuania, Austria and other parts of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires also marked brief attempts to overthrow class society, with those under Russian control being isolated after the treaty of Brest Litovsk.
In Italy, the factory occupation movement and the Arditi del Popolo mounted a serious challenge to the rise of Mussolini for four years between 1918-1922, but by the end of this time fascism had replaced the old regime rather than social revolution. Spain saw general strikes in Barcelona during 1909 and 1919 along with the rise of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT, the final defeat of the movement by Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 marked the definitive end of the revolutionary period on the eve of the Second World War.
Industrial unionism developed in the UK, with the South Wales Miners Federation, and Glasgow's Red Clydeside. This period of radicalism would end with the defeat of Britain's only ever general strike in 1926. Ireland also saw working class insurrections with the Munster Uprising and the Limerick Soviet.
