3.2 - Consequences of Russian Revolution PERSPECTIVES

Question 1

Perspectives
Early Bolshevik Rule
x3

Answer 1

• “I shall order a few revolutionary decrees to the people, then shut up shop” (Trotsky)
• Addressing a group of workers: “You are the power: do all you want to do, take all you want. We shall support you, but take care of production, see that production is useful” (Lenin)
• “we shall destroy everything and on the ruins we shall build our temple” (Lenin)

Question 2

Perspectives
Initial Disorder
x3

Answer 2

• “The whole city was infested by the drinking madness” (Antonov-Ovseenko)
• “storm of dark passions” (Gorky)
• “There is nothing immoral in the proletariat finishing off a class that is collapsing” (Trotsky)

Question 3

Perspectives
State Capitalism
x1

Answer 3

• “Socialism is nothing but state-capitalist monopoly which has been turned in the interests of the people” (Lenin)

Question 4

Perspectives
Dissolution of Constituent Assembly
x5

Answer 4

• “bourgeoisie parliamentarianism has become outdated; that it is completely incompatible with the construction of Socialism” (Lenin)
• Anything less than Soviet power would be a “retrograde step and would cause the collapse of the entire… Revolution” (Lenin)
• Opposition from Constituent Assembly would cause “most energetic, rapid, firm and decisive measures of Soviet authority” (Lenin)
• “We will not exchange our rifles for a ballot” (Lenin)
• “nothing in the world will make us give up Soviet power” (Lenin)

Question 5

Perspectives
Soviet Polish War
x2

Answer 5

• “we shall bring happiness and peace to the toilers of humanity on our bayonets” (Tukhachevsky, Commander of Red Army)
• Treaty of Riga: “I thought it was wiser to come to terms with the enemy” (Lenin)

Question 6

Perspectives
Trotsky as Leader of Red Army
x1

Answer 6

• A military expert “has the right to be respected, and shall be respected” (Trotsky)

Question 7

Perspectives
Weaknesses of White Armies
x2

Answer 7

• “I can do nothing with my army. I am glad when it carries out my combat orders.” (Denikin)
• “If I raise the republican flag, I lose half my volunteers, and if I raise the monarchist flag, I lose the other half” (Denikin)

Question 8

Perspectives
Red Terror
x4

Answer 8

• “We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class” (Latsis, Cheka deputy)
• “necessary to create an organ… that would protect the rear of the Red Army and permit peaceful development of the Soviet form of government” (Latsis, Cheka deputy)
• “The sooner we get rid of the bourgeoisie, the sooner we will reach socialism” (Dzerzhinsky / Iron Felix)
• “Life or death” (Dzerzhinsky / Iron Felix)

Question 9

Perspectives
Execution of the Tsar
x2

Answer 9

• “we should not leave the Whites a live banner to rally around” (Sverdlov)
• “needed not only to frighten, horrify and instil a sense of hopelessness in the enemy, but also to shake up our own ranks, to show that there was no retreating” (Trotsky)

Question 10

Perspectives
War Communism
x4

Answer 10

• “A deserter from labour is as contemptible and despicable as a deserter from the battlefield” (Trotsky)
• “He who does not work, neither shall he eat” (Lenin)
• “For God’s sake, use the most energetic and revolutionary measures to send grain, grain and more grain” (Lenin)
• “The kulaks are the rabid foes of the Soviet government… these leeches have sucked the blood of the working people” (Lenin)

Question 11

Perspectives
Great Famine of 1921
x1

Answer 11

• “Either the lice will defeat socialism or socialism will defeat the lice” (Lenin)

Question 12

Perspectives
Kronstadt Revolt
x3

Answer 12

• Kronstadt sailors were “the pride and glory of the revolution… the reddest of the red” (Trotsky)
• “Only those who surrender unconditionally may count of the mercy of the Soviet republic” (Trotsky)
• “the flash that lit up reality better than anything else” (Lenin)

Question 13

Perspectives
Workers’ Opposition
x2

Answer 13

• “bureaucracy is our greatest enemy, our scourge, and the greatest danger to the future existence of the Communist Party itself” (Kollontai)
• “the building of Communism can and must be the work of the toiling masses themselves” (Kollontai)

Question 14

Perspectives
On Party Unity
x1

Answer 14

• “all members of the Russian Communist Party who are in the slightest degree suspicious or unreliable… should be got rid of” (Lenin)

Question 15

Perspectives
Prolekult
x1

Answer 15

• “an independent proletarian spiritual culture… the fruit of the creative efforts of the working class” (Kerzhentsev, leader of Prolekult movement)

Question 16

Perspectives
Electrification
x1

Answer 16

• “electricity will take the place of God” (Lenin, 1918)