Release date is 2025-11-13

Laurent Vogel (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica))

"Comment est née la révolution russe" by Jacques Bainville is a historical account written in the early 20th century. It examines how the February–March 1917 upheaval emerged from the interplay of wartime strain, a nationally minded Duma, a self-preserving bureaucracy, and the court’s discredit, notably around Raspoutine. The work argues that a patriotic, liberal path was possible but squandered by a weak monarch and reactionary entourage. It is aimed at readers seeking a clear, contemporary analysis of the Revolution’s immediate causes and dynamics.

The opening of this study sets the Revolution against a broader pattern of national uprisings, likening Russia’s crisis to China’s and stressing how national sentiment, peasants, and unassimilated minorities would shape outcomes. It recounts missed opportunities: a Petrograd banker’s cautious talk of “safety valves,” the regime’s near-total lack of defenders, and Nicholas II’s fleeting 1916 rapprochement with the Duma that liberals were ready to build on. Bainville then contrasts the Duma’s patriotic, war-driven nationalism with an entrenched bureaucracy (the tchin) bent on protecting its monopoly against energetic civic bodies (zemstvos, unions). Raspoutine appears less as omnipotent puppet-master than as a scandal that alienated traditional supporters, especially the Orthodox hierarchy. The narrative culminates in the swift collapse precipitated by Protopopov’s provocations—censorship, dissolving the Duma, stoking shortages—while liberal leaders still tried to save the throne or at least the dynasty. The section closes by framing the Revolution as fundamentally national, yet vulnerable to a struggle between anarchic currents and renewed patriotism. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Paris: Nouvelle librairie nationale, 1917