Military Bureaucracy and Military Bureaucrats: From Russian Empire to Soviet Republic

Abstract

The article focuses on the role and history of military bureaucratic institutions in Imperial Russia during the revolutionary events of 1917. The author scrutinizes the military bureaucracy as a part of state military elite in tsarist Russia resulting from modernization at the beginning of the twentieth century. Positions in various structures and levels of military management during February 1917 are analyzed. The ambiguous and contradictory role of the main military administration was a reflection of the general crisis in the imperial state management in early 1917. The Provisional Government inherited the old military management apparatus and its staff. A relevant feature of the Military Ministry apparatus functioning under new conditions was its interaction with the political leadership. An analysis of the evolution of the state military bureaucratic structures in 1917 and various trends in their reformation reveals that in even revolutionary circumstances, the Military Ministry continued to perform its technical functions, although it lost control over the army. During the October coup, military management institutions did not become centers of counter-revolutionary resistance, and later came under control of the Soviet government in a relatively peaceful way.