4. Russia Consequences NEW Flashcards
The New Decrees
(Sovnarkom and examples)
-early initiatives of the Sovnarkom (new Soviet government after October 1917, led by Lenin) aimed to:
–ensuring a continuation of power
–instituting radical social and economic change
-decrees include:
–land decree (27th October)
—allowed peasants to legally seize gentry land
–workers’ control decree (14th November)
—gave industrial laboureres the right to apply the government for self-management
-“We, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we are going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, workers and peasants.” - Leon Trotsky
1917
Initial Problems Faced by the Sovnarkom
immediate problems:
-civil servants went on strike over the October revolution
-keys to offices and safes were hidden and records destroyed
-state bank employees refused to hand over money to sovnarkom officials
growing problems:
-anarchy after the feb/oct revolutions
-Bolsheviks did not have the power or desire to stop violence
-“If you do not succeed in barring the path to drunken excess, all you will have left in the way of defenses will be the armoured cars. Remember this, each day of drunkenness brings the other side closer to victory and us to the old slavery.” - Leon Trotsky
October onwards 1917
The Constituent Assembly and its Dissolution
-Bolsheviks were losing popular support, only won 24% of the votes for CA sitting (these did include the Proletariat)
-Lenin believed that Soviet democracy was of a higher standard than bourgeoisie parlimentarianism (CA)
-martial law was called into Petrograd by Sovnarkom before the Assembly began
-proceedings were dominated by right-wing SRs (SR leader voted chairman)
–assembly refused to ratify Soviet decrees on peace and land
-Bolsheviks and left SRs walked out on Lenin’s instruction before the Assembly deconvened
-Bolshevik troops lock and guard the doors to the Tauride Palace, refusing to allow anyone to reenter, announcing the CA dissolved
-Beginning of the Bolsheviks authoritarian mentality
-“The machine gun became for them [the Bolsheviks] the principal instrument of political persuasion. The unrestrained brutality with which they henceforth ruled Russia stemmed in large measure from the knowledge, gained on January 5, that they could use it with impunity.” - Richard Pipes
5th-6th of January
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
-agreement between Russia and Germany that ended Russia’s involvement in WWI
-Lenin was desperate for peace as the war was harming Bolshevik reputation
-Consequences:
–34% of Russia’s European population taken out of Soviet control
–Russia gave up 32% of their farmland, including the Ukraine (source of grain)
–Lost 89% of iron ore and coal reserves
-Trotsky refused to sign, became Commissar of War
“It was a device, the Bolsheviks admitted, to trade space for time, the time which they needed to consolidate their revolutionary rule in the territory they held, and to defeat anti-Bolshevik forces… Yet the space they yielded was enormous.” - Richard J Crampton
15th March, 1918
Civil War
-complex war with many different moving fronts
-foreign interventionalists (France, Britain, the USA, Japan) also played a role
-The Soviet-Polish War (April 1920)
–Poland declared independence from Russia and invaded Ukraine
–Bolsheviks believed that this could be a step in sparking communist revolution in Germany and beyond
-The Treaty of Riga (18th of March 1921)
–Poland was granted vast reparations
–changed the outlook of communist foreign policy from direct assault to a more cautious approach
-“Bolshevik terror crept out of European Russia like a biblical pestilence … Arbitrary arrests, mass shootings, torture and imprisonment were an integral element of Bolshevik policy long before anti-Bolshevik armies gathered.” - Jamie Bisher
7 November 1917 – 25 October 1922
Red Armies
Strengths:
-geographic advantages
–major cities and factories
–rail and road connections
-united purpose and idealogy
-use of propaganda (depicted the conflict as a class war)
White Armies
composition:
-nationalists
-monarchists
-refugee bourgeoisie and nobility
weaknesses:
-lack of coordinated strategy
-corruption
-only uniting cause being opposition to the Bolsheviks
-offered no political alternative
White Terror
-mass executions, harsh labour camps and the burning of whole villages were common under white leadership
-more brutal terror methods included the gouging of eyes, cutting off of tongues or being quatered by horses
-“Anti-Bolshevik forces killed 100 for every one person killed by the Bolsheviks.” - William S Graves, American Major General
Red Terror
-Lenin’s assassination attempt:
–shot by a factory worker in Moscow
–triggered wave of retaliation towards anti-Bolshevik violence
-Murder of the romanovs (June 1918)
–Leon Trotsky later argued that the murder was “not only expedient but necessary,” as it both eliminated the possibility that the Whites would capture the Tsar and made clear that the Bolsheviks would not compromise
–permanent rejection of the old regime
-“The sooner we get rid of the bourgeoisie, the sooner we will reach socialism.” - Felix Dzerzhinsky
Reasons for Launching the Red Terror
Bolsheviks developed a ‘siege mentality’ and were paranoid about ‘internal enemies’ as:
1) Soviet state surrounded by White Armies from May 1918 onwards
2) Left SR coup d’etat briefly seizes Moscow
3) Lenin shot 3 times in attempted assassination by SR Fania Kaplan (30 Aug 1918)
The Cheka
-The Bolshevik secret police, formed in Dec 1917.
-the Cheka was charged with identifying and fighting ‘counter-revolutionaries’ who opposed the regime. It grew in power and scope during the Red Terror. It was abolished in 1922, after the Civil War ended and it was seen as unnecessary.
-directed by Felix Dzerzhinsky
“Revolution was not like an election campaign in which the party that gains a majority gains the upper hand; rather it was like a military campaign in which the side that can mobilise the greatest physical strength in the most sensitive places wins the day.” - Ron Suny
1917-1922
Kronstadt Revolt
A mutiny by 17,000 sailors against Bolshevik rule in March 1921.
The sailors demanded ‘Soviets without Communists’ and an end to the harsh measures of War Communism on 1 Mar 1921. The mutiny was suppressed by 50,000 Red Army soldiers led by Trotsky on 17 Mar 1921.
Led to the 10th Party Congress
March 1921
State Capitalism
-transitional stage from capitalism to socialism
-Main components:
–government control over some industries
–centralised banking
–free market remains
1918
War Communism
A series of harsh economic policies implemented May 1918 - March 1921 in order to feed the cities and supply the Red Army
The main policies of War Communism were:
1) Replacement of money with ration system
2) Grain requisitioning from peasants
3) Militarisation of the economy
-“Moreover, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders stressed the importance of drawing on the skills of the old managers and owners in the current economic crisis and transitional stage; supervision, not replacement of them was needed. [So] the regime followed a rather inconsistent economic policy for the rest of 1917, especially on workers’ supervision and nationalisation.” - Rex Wade
June 28 1918
The 1921 Famine
A 1921-22 famine caused by a combination of severe drought in 1920 and grain requisitioning between 1918 and 1920.
5 million Russians died of starvation, and 2 million more in epidemics. The famine triggered widespread peasant rebellions, and contributed to the decision to end War Communism
-“Families were killing and devouring fathers, grandfathers and children. Ghastly rumours about sausages prepared with human corpses (the technical expression was ‘ground to sausages’) though officially contradicted, were common. In the market, among rough huckstresses swearing at each other, one heard threats to make sausages of a person.” - Russian Aid Worker
10th Party Congress
Bolshevik Party Congress in March 1921 which introduced the NEP and banned factions.
The party approved of 2 of Lenin’s resolutions:
1) ‘On the Tax in Kind’: end to War Communism, introduction of a 10% tax of peasant grain
2) ‘On Unity’: all Bolsheviks who disagree with Lenin’s party line to be purged
Opposed by:
-Workers’ Opposition
–campaigned for the economy to be managed by authorities elected by trade unions
-Democratic centralists
–opposed the centralisation of state control over industry
March 1921
NEP
Capitalist economic policy introduced Mar 1921.
Grain requisitioning was replaced with a 10% ‘tax in kind’, with peasants permitted to sell their surplus grain. Rationing was replaced with cash wages and private trade. Succeeded in restarting the economy but created doubts among workers and Bolsheviks about the future of Communism.
Outcomes:
1) Grain production recovered to pre-WW1 levels by 1924 (37 million tonnes wheat in 1921 to 73 million tonnes in 1924)
2) Industrial production rose 100% between 1921-24, but still below WW1 levels
3) Wages remained low and prices remained high, so living standard barely improved
Education initiatives
Literacy rose between 10-15% between 1917 and 1924, due to:
1) all Red Army soldiers given literacy classes
2) compulsory primary education introduced and made free
3) night classes made available to industrial workers, particularly women
Literacy was seen as vital to participation in a communist society
NEP outcomes
1) Grain production recovered to pre-WW1 levels by 1924 (37 million tonnes wheat in 1921 to 73 million tonnes in 1924)
2) Industrial production rose 100% between 1921-24, but still below WW1 levels
3) Wages remained low and prices remained high, so living standard barely improved
Women’s Rights
Bolshevichki:
-emancipation of women from life in male-dominated society
-Decree on Marriage (1917)
–marriage was an act of mutual consent
Zhenotdel (1919):
-Women’s faction of the Communist party
-creches, communal kitchens, and efforts made to improve women’s literacy
-“No more inequality within the family, the woman in the communist city no longer depends on her husband but her work.” - Alexandra Kollontai
Socio-Cultural (CC)
-religion
–Russian Orthodox Church reinforced the Tsarist Regime
–Communist government repressed the Church
-Class Conflict
–hatred of the bourgeoisie grew among the working classes
–ruling class became those previously politically repressed
-education
-women’s rights
Military (CC)
-Russo Japanese war
–worsened economic problems and heightened political tensions
-WWI
–exposed flaws in the Tsarist regime and created revolutionary situations
–Provisional Government
–Bolsheviks rose to power by promising peace
-Civil War
–fundamental influence on Soviet policies
–communist victory came at the cost of 8 million lives and extraordinary damage to the Russian economy
-Polish-Soviet War
–Red Army marched into Poland in an attempt to spark international revolution
–dashed by their defeat
-Popular Revolts
–Mutinies and revolts were a symptom of discontent
–Provisional Government was also rocked by rural unrest and mass demonstrations
Political (CC)
-autocracy
–collapse of the absolute autocracy in favour of democracy
-democracy
–popularised by the Feburary Revolution
–lasted only 8 months under the provisional government
-constituent assembly
–was longed for and its almost immediate dissolution made advocates upset, although the general population was indifferent
-opposition groups
–until 1905, trade unions and political groups were illegal in tsarist Russia
–political opponents and factions within the Bolsheviks were also banned
Economic (CC)
-Agriculture
–tsarist russia was agricultural, but farming practices were outdated and inefficient
-the great spurt
–sergei witte directed the expansion of industry in the 1890s with stable currency and investment in railway
-state capitalism (1918)
–policy of mixed socialist and free-market practices brought economic breakdown and lasted less than 6 months
-war communism (1918-1921)
–celebrated by radicals and addressed immediate needs
–led to famine and shortages of goods
-NEP (1921-1927)
–mix of free market and state ownership
–industry recovered to pre-war levels
