Soldiers not Peasants: The Moral Basis of the February Revolution of 1917

Abstract

This case study is concerned with discussing the dual nature of military power, the material and the moral; and it shows how moral power in fact played a decisive role in the February revolution in Russia in 1917. There are four parts to the argument. Firstly, the introduction, where the problems addressed in the paper as well as its theoretical framework are outlined. The second part is a brief account of events during the first four days of the February revolution, and an extended treatment of the soldiers' mutiny on the fifth day; in addition the strength of the soldiers' solidarity is compared with that of the workers' solidarity. In the third part existing explanations for the mutiny are examined and critically assessed, and an alternative explanation is developed. Finally the relevance of the study for some wider theoretical issues is briefly discussed.