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29 Cards in this Set
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- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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Problems encountered by the Bolsheviks upon seizing Russia in 1917 |
- Russia was still at war with Germany and Austria Hungary -unstable economy due to war debts and inefficiency - socialist revolutionaries were more popular (350 seats vs 175 in Nov 1917) Bolsheviks controlled Moscow but had little control over the rest of Russia |
4 bullets |
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Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany |
-Lenin wanted to sign and have immeadiate peace. Claimed it was due to military exhaustion and to retain territory. His reasons may not be wholly ideological as Germany were giving Russia regular financial support in the hope that they would pull out of the war if they achieved the revolutionary aims. - Trotsky wanted to delay the signing “no peace no war” in hope that Germany would lose war before signing. Irritated Germans, called treaty a “German Diktat” as terms were too humiliating (Russia would loose 1m sqkm land and 3bn roubles. - left communists and hardline Bolsheviks ( Bukharin) wanted to continue war as a revolutionary crusade against imperialist Germany. Subordinated their patriotic feelings after Lenin insisted the party needed unity. Lenin proved right and hold over party was strengthened after Germany’s Western front collapsed. |
3 perspectives on treaty. |
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Why was there a civil war 1918-20? |
-pro-tsarists wanted Nicholas back in power. -nationalities wanted greater freedom. -peasantry became disillusioned after Communist promises were broken. Many believed tsar had divine right. -political opposition (SRs and Mensheviks) closure of constituent assembly and use of terror. -reaction against Brest Litovsk and Lenin’s betrayal. |
5 bullets/groups of people |
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Soviet view vs revisionist view (Figes) of civil war and terror |
-soviet view: Bolsheviks were forced to fight against the whites and the use of terror was necessary to defend themselves. Lenin was a victim of circumstance. -revisionist view (Figes): Lenin welcomed Civil War as a necessary stage in the class struggle and gave him chance to build the party powerbase and keep control of Russia. |
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Red strengths during the civil war |
-controlled the key cities of Petrograd and Moscow and good logistics/railways under control. -use of “agitation”, loyal Bolshevik supporters spurred on the red Army by promoting unity and defence against the motherland. -Trotsky’s unquestionable rule, shot those who questioned him, Red terror. -Red army had 5m soldiers and support from Kronstadt sailors (many Reds were fighting Germany). |
4 bullets |
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Red weaknesses during the civil war |
-Low peasant support (previous grain requisitioning). -Low foreign support (allies hostile after Russia sign Brest-Litovsk and remove themselves from war). |
2 bullets |
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Red weaknesses during the civil war |
-Low peasant support (previous grain requisitioning). -Low foreign support (allies hostile after Russia sign Brest-Litovsk and remove themselves from war). |
2 bullets |
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White strengths during the civil war |
-initial united aim to remove Bolsheviks and restore Romanovs. -Support from allies, weapons sent worth £100m and 200,000 troops. |
2 bullets |
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Red weaknesses during the civil war |
-Low peasant support (previous grain requisitioning). -Low foreign support (allies hostile after Russia sign Brest-Litovsk and remove themselves from war). |
2 bullets |
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White strengths during the civil war |
-initial united aim to remove Bolsheviks and restore Romanovs. -Support from allies, weapons sent worth £100m and 200,000 troops. |
2 bullets |
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White weaknesses during the civil war |
-too spreadout, lacked communication and poor supplies. -propaganda claimed that the whites were being controlled by the Allies. -no unity or trust. Confusions arose over true aim of the whites and drinking, drugs and atrocities against villages rife among army. -Black market trading of weapons. Trotsky sent a letter thanking the whites for their help in supplying the Reds with weaponry. -lacked peasants support as they thought they would have to give up land. Peasants also did not like the Allies as they were supported by landowners. -Allies became disillusioned, troops mutinied. DLG said he would rather see “ Russia Bolshevik than Britain bankrupt”. |
6 bullets |
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Causes of the Red Terror |
-1918 assassination attempt by Fanya Kaplan. (Leads to cult of Lenin and him perceived as chosen one). -political opposition -opposition to grain requisitioning and “ White Brigades” -Discontent with the Bolshevik policies and Lenins failure to evoke promises made in his April thesis. Civil war looming. |
4 bullets |
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Causes of the Red Terror |
-1918 assassination attempt by Fanya Kaplan. (Leads to cult of Lenin and him perceived as chosen one). -political opposition -opposition to grain requisitioning and “ White Brigades” -Discontent with the Bolshevik policies and Lenins failure to evoke promises made in his April thesis. Civil war looming. |
4 bullets |
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Events of the Red Terror |
-8,500 executed in the first year -August 1918 hanging order saw the execution of 100 dissident peasants as a public deterrent -September 1918 the cc issue a decree calling on the Cheka to secure the Soviet republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps and making names of those executed public. -by 1920 the Cheka had employed around 200,000 men. -civil service purged and bureaucracy was of poor quality but loyal. Tsarists, striking workers, kulaks, Members of the church all targeted. Class war with him to destroy the bourgeoisie. |
5 bullets |
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Consequences of the Red Terror |
-Labour camps became gulags under Stalin in the 1930s and arguably formed foundations for the great terror -more than 100,000 killed -bolsheviks create a police state controlled by fear -Cheka worse than Okrhana? |
4 bullets |
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Sally Waller on the terror |
There was a pressing need to retain and consolidate control that lead the Bolsheviks to act first and justify later |
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Sally Waller on the terror |
There was a pressing need to retain and consolidate control that lead the Bolsheviks to act first and justify later |
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James Bisher and the Terror |
Mass shootings, torture and imprisonment were an integral element of Bolshevik policy long before anti-Bolshevik armies gathered |
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Political change (move to centralism) |
-Oct 1917 Sovnarkom forms as Bolshevik govt. Left SRs introduced to apparently represent peasant interests -1917 Decrees on peace/land/workers control/people of Russia -Dec 1917 Cheka -1918 dissolved constituent assembly. Bolsheviks only received 24% of votes, set up new constitution with vote reserved for “toiling masses” (workers) against “exploited masses” (bourgeoisie) weighted 5 to 1. -1919 Politburo replaces Sovnarkom. 7-9 members, much smaller -1921 Ban on Factions, after Kronstadt ask Lenin to approve their demands for free speech and trade union. Alexandra Kollontai forms Workers Opposition Party claiming workers have not been given enough power. Peasants also unhappy at low wages and high prices. -1922 show trials of SRs -1923 Stalins Nomenklatura, 5,500 loyal party members rewarded with better rations and housing |
8 bullets |
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Society (religion) |
-1918 Decree on Separation of Church and State - churches could not own their own property and buildings had to be rented. Religious teaching in schools was outlawed and priests and clerics declared servants of the bourgeoisie. - 1922 Attack on the Orthodox Church - churches stripped of possessions with the use of violence apparently to help famine victims. Lenin overruled Politburo decision to suspend violence, 8,000 killed inc 1,215 priests. -1922-24 - “Bezbozhnik” anti religious newspaper published by the League of Militant Atheists. -Komsomol associated with hostility to religion. Broke up religious services, played tricks on priests, staged parodies of the Orthodox Church. Most present weddings still celebrated in church. Older women usually remained believers and church stayed central to peasant life whereas men became indifferent to religion as they spent time away in the army. |
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Society (culture) |
-Commissariat of Popular Enlightenment - art focus moved towards “popular culture” directed at the masses. Art of the past linked with the bourgeoisie was destroyed. Bolsheviks wanted to keep popular artists on side so they could create propaganda pieces, artists had previously been censored under the czarist regime and were excited by the Bolshevik revolution. Enactments of October 1917 encouraged. -Avant Garde - agitprop trains and boats displayed agitational art, statue of Marx and Engels erected, communist propaganda throughout streets. Mayakovskys work praising communism was studied in schools but his later political satires censored. |
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Society (women) |
-1917 laws made divorce easier as only one person had to sign divorce papers. -1920 abortion legalised. -Alexandra Kollontai first woman admitted to party, wanted to “relived women of the cross of motherhood”. -But in 1920s Russia had the highest divorce rate 25% higher than Britain, 70% of all divorces were initiated by men. There were 7-9m orphans after civil war. When men returned from war women were forced from skilled work into unskilled work and usually ended up in crime of prostitution. Although the Bolsheviks wanted an equal split between men and women in terms of childcare, many men refused to help. |
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Society (education) |
-Financial pressure from the NEP meant that university schooling was banned. By 1923 the number of pupils in schools had not risen much and schools had inefficient resources with badly paid teachers. -Dec 1919 Liquidation of Illiteracy aimed to combat illiteracy rate of 65%. Liquidation points set up in villages and between 1920 and 1926, 5m went through literacy courses. Commissariat of the Enlightenment provided free education at all levels in co-educational schools. -Komsomol for ages 14-28 acted as a political organ for spreading Communist teaching and involved educational, sporting and industrial activities. Other youth movements include Pioneers and Little Octoberists. |
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Society (workers) |
-2-3m people had emigrated. Old ruling class lived on as state employees and specialists and civil servants as most of the Russian population were illiterate. There was a shortage of educated party members and the 1921 Red Professors Institute was set up to address the shortage of Marxist professors, students required to complete a four-year course. -rapid education of the proletariat led to widening gap between the cities and countryside. In the countryside, the number of Kulaks was exaggerated To fuel class war. In the Ukraine 25% of farmers were still farming on peasant sized plot during the 1920s. |
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Economic policy (State Capitalism 1917-1918) |
Transitional phase with a degree of state control but private markets still remained. Dec 1917 Decree on Workers Control allowed the factory committee to control production, finances and supervise management. There were no radical plans put in place. The 1918 Decree to Nationalise saw 4 in 5 factories seized by the workers without government control but this was already occurring despite the decree being issued. -consequences: productivity fell, inefficiency, excessive pay rises. High inflation lead to increased battering and rationing. Strikes increased and many workers left for the countryside. |
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Economic policy (War Communism 1918-1921) |
All means of production became subservient to the war. Banning of private trade due to shortage in consumer goods. Blackmarket helped most to survive but exploitation of others was not a Communist ideal. The nationalisation of industry replaced workers committee with single managers who reported back to the central authorities, often old bourgeoisie managers. Rationing was issued on a class-based system with the army and labour force given priority and “burzhooi” given least. 42% of Moscow prostitutes were from elite families. Labour discipline resulted in fines for lateness and absence. Internal passports stopped people fleeing to the countryside and piece work rates and bonuses were brought back. Grain requisitioning was carried out by Cheka and Red guards. -consequences: The population of 57% in Petrograd and 44% in Moscow. Epidemics, 3m killed by typhus in 1920. Strikes, food riots, 20% decrease in production levels and increased number of orphans. Agricultural decline 33% land abandoned. 1921 famine killed 5m. Tambov rebellion 1921 saw use of poison gas killing 5m. In 1921 30,000 Kronstadt sailors rebelled, Lenin called this a “lightening flash that lit up reality”. Chris Read - “the aspirations of 1917 died within Kronstadt”. |
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Economic policy (War Communism 1918-1921) |
All means of production became subservient to the war. Banning of private trade due to shortage in consumer goods. Blackmarket helped most to survive but exploitation of others was not a Communist ideal. The nationalisation of industry replaced workers committee with single managers who reported back to the central authorities, often old bourgeoisie managers. Rationing was issued on a class-based system with the army and labour force given priority and “burzhooi” given least. 42% of Moscow prostitutes were from elite families. Labour discipline resulted in fines for lateness and absence. Internal passports stopped people fleeing to the countryside and piece work rates and bonuses were brought back. Grain requisitioning was carried out by Cheka and Red guards. -consequences: The population of 57% in Petrograd and 44% in Moscow. Epidemics, 3m killed by typhus in 1920. Strikes, food riots, 20% decrease in production levels and increased number of orphans. Agricultural decline 33% land abandoned. 1921 famine killed 5m. Tambov rebellion 1921 saw use of poison gas killing 5m. In 1921 30,000 Kronstadt sailors rebelled, Lenin called this a “lightening flash that lit up reality”. Chris Read - “the aspirations of 1917 died within Kronstadt”. |
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Economic policy (NEP 1921-1924) |
Unpopularity of war communism and the ruined economy from the Civil War. Small private businesses were allowed to set up and small traders (Nepmen) allowed to prosper. Peasants were free to sell any extra produce and taxes were paid in produce (later switched to money tax after the 1923 scissor crisis). Major industries kept under state control. -success of NEP: grain prices dropped due to increased supply, incentive for peasants to make more grain to sell, quality of life increased due to increased range of goods, 8 hour working day and social benefits for workers, new rouble controlled inflation, coal production increased from 8.7m tonnes 1920 to 27.6m tonnes 1926. -failures of NEP: really communist? Individuals rewarded for hard work and Nepmen controlled 75% trade. 1923 scissor crisis lead to widening gap between industrial and agricultural prices, production levels never exceeded 3m tonnes and foreign trade deteriorated, agriculture remained backwards 5m wooden ploughs being used by 1926, companies cut workforce to increase profits and kept wages low, number of schools decreased and coal production had actually fallen by 1.4 M tonnes from 1913, increased crime/orphans/gambling/overcrowding. |
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Lenin’s testament (unpublished) |
- Stalin: had unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, was not sure whether he would be capable of using it with sufficient caution. LATER Lenin adds that Stalin is too rude and suggests that comrades think about removing him from his post. -Trotsky: had proved himself with outstanding ability to be the most capable man in the cc. -Zinoviev and Kamenev: Still remembered for the October episode. -Bukharin: valuable and major theorist in the party but his views can be classified as fully Marxist only with the greatest reserve as there is something scholastic about him. |
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