2.3 Moves Towards Totalitarianism

Question 1

What did the Bolsheviks do soon after taking power?

Answer 1

They restricted freedom to secure control and shut down any opposition

Question 2

Who did the Bolsheviks ban in December 1917?

Answer 2

The Kadet party. They also arrested their leaders

Question 3

What other opposition did the Bolsheviks shut down from 1918?

Answer 3

The SRs and Mensheviks were arrested; anarchists were arrested in 1919 and in 1921, other political parties were banned

Question 4

When was the Cheka set up?

Answer 4

It was Decmber 1917

Question 5

What did the Cheka do?

Answer 5

They executed people regarded as enemies of the revolution and were responsible for running political prisons which later became prisons and labour camps (Gulags)

Question 6

When and what is “The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger” decree?

Answer 6

February 1918 - the decree allowed the Bolsheviks to force anyone into forced labour and were allowed to shoot anyone who resisted

Question 7

What is the Red Terror and when did it occur?

Answer 7

The Red Terror was a time of arrests and executions between September 1918 and February 1919

Question 8

How many people died during this period?

Answer 8

Between 50,000 and 140,000

Question 9

Why did the Red Terror occur?

Answer 9

Opposition was growing to the new government and the Civil War was starting. Lenin was also reacting to an assassination attempt by Fanya Kaplan (SR) in August 1918

Question 10

What happened after the Red Terror?

Answer 10

Executions and arrests still occured and thus accompanied the setting up a dictatorship

Question 11

When and what is the Kronstadt Mutiny?

Answer 11

March 1921 - sailors from the naval base at Kronstadt mutinied against the brutal ruel of the Bolsheviks. They saw it as a response to “War Communism”

Question 12

Was this a shock to Lenin?

Answer 12

Yes - the sailors helped create the revolution in 1917

Question 13

What did the sailors demand from Lenin?

Answer 13

New elections to soviets by secret ballot, freedom of speech and freedom of press for all left-wing socialist parties, free trade-unions and peasant organisations, an end to commissars in the navy and army, an end to grain requisition squads seizing grain from peasants and government restrictions on trade to be lifted

Question 14

How did Lenin react?

Answer 14

Lenin called the sailors “Whites” and “counter-revolutionaries” which wasn’t true

Question 15

What was the sailor’s real intentions?

Answer 15

They wanted to discuss changes and not overthrow the revolution

Question 16

What was the outcome of the mutiny?

Answer 16

The Red Army crushed them under the command of Trotsky while also being accompanied by the Cheka

Question 17

Did the sailors survive?

Answer 17

Mainly no. Most were killed when fought back and some fled to Finland and the sailors that were captured were sent to concentration camps

Question 18

How did the Bolsheviks centralise power?

Answer 18

The Bolsheviks officially changed their name to “ Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks)”

Question 19

What did the Bolsheviks believe?

Answer 19

They believed that their policies were building a socialist state and that Russia would be the first fully communsist country in the world but they became a brutal dictatorship instead

Question 20

What was the role of Lenin?

Answer 20

Lenin played a major role in organising the government. He was the leading member of the Communsit Party and the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) and was able to unite the party and government. He was able to keep political rivals under control and out of power

Question 21

What did the Bolsheviks claim after their successful revolution?

Answer 21

They claimed that they were doing it on behalf of the soviets and especially the All-Russian Congress of Soviets which was meeting in Petrograd as they seized power

Question 22

What was the reality?

Answer 22

Power was held by the Communist Party (Bolsheviks)