AOS2

Question 1

Takeover and subsequent conflict

Answer 1

October 1917

Kerensky fought against bolsheviks but lost support as he was considered like the Tsar.

There were 700 casualties

Question 2

Voting for the constituent assembly

Answer 2

November 1917

Lenin allowed the elections to continue. Not surprisingly, the socialist Revolutionaries received the highest percentage of the votes, given their mass support from the peasantry.

Question 3

Formation of the Cheka

Answer 3

December 1917

Despite its small beginnings, this group of secret police became a prominent force behind the new government. It was given extensive powers to execute enemies of the government.

Question 4

dismissal of the constituent Assembly

Answer 4

18 January 1918

In response to criticism from within the Constituent Assembly the bolshevik troops forced the assembly to conclude.
This demonstrated Lenin’s unwillingness to form a broad-based coalition government of many revolutionary parties. It also revealed his justification of force as an acceptable political weapon. The ends always justified the means for the new government. Pipes - ‘the machine gun became for them the principal instrument of political persuasion.’

Question 5

Treaty of Brest Litovsk

Answer 5

3 March 1918

Lenin’s 1917 promise of peace was fulfilled. The new government’s determination to withdraw Russia from WWI was demonstrated by the high conditions demanded by the Germans in the treaty. (more under peace)

Question 6

State capitalism

Answer 6

Government exercised control over large industries, trade with foeign countries and weapons factories, and finance through a centralised banking sector. But workers and peasants were allowed to exercise control over the land and factories that they seized when Sovnarkom passed the Land Decree and Decree on Workers’ Control. Tom Ryan - ‘quasi-capitalist economy, regulated and held accountable by a socialist government’

Question 7

War Communism

Answer 7

June 1918

A string of economic policies with the intention of mobilising the nation to fight the civil war. Initially introduced in june 1918 to maintain control over the economy and trade. The policies included:
Grain requisitioning (committees of the poor, forced requisitioning)
Militarisation of the workplace (labour armies, harsher workplace conditions, voluntary weekend workday)
Nationalisation of industry, elimination of monetary economy: hyper-inflation (black market trading)
State supplied services (ration systems, public transport, public housing.)
Its effects:
95% of deaths within the Civil War were from famine and disease.
Industrial output had fallen to as low as 15% of pre-war levels, agriculture output to 60%
The number of industrial workers had halved, from 3 024 000 in 1917 to 1 480 000 in 1921.
Since 1913 coal production had fallen to 30% of pre-war output.
Bribes were an expected aspect of life
People resorted to cannibalism, eating glue in wallpaper, and making bread out of

Question 8

Murder of the royal family

Answer 8

17 July 1918

Eliminating Nicholas and his family was perceived as preventing a royal return to the throne. But it further illustrated merciless Bolshevik violence.
28 August: Attempted assassination of Lenin

Question 9

Attempted assassination of Lenin

Answer 9

28 August 1918

Fanny Kaplan’s close but failed assassination of Lenin directly led to the new government’s implementation of Red Terror against its opponents.

Question 10

Civil War

Answer 10

1918 - 1920

Many separate groups and leaders fought against the Bolshevik government. Their reasons and desired outcomes were different, but their disillusionment with the government was shared. All armies were defeated due to the Bolshevik’s greater military and psychological strength.
Foreign intervention
Frustrated at Russia’s withdrawal from WWI, former Allied nations entered Russia to provide support for the white armies. Defeating the new communist government may have returned Russia to the world war.
Policy of War Communism
Implemented in order to help win the Civil War, these policies devastated rural Russia. Grain requisitioning discouraged peasants from producing a surplus, resulting in severe famine, killing nearly 10 million.

Question 11

Tenth Party Congress

Answer 11

8–16 March 1921

After three years of military, economic and social turmoil, Lenin called for unity.

Question 12

Defeat of the Kronstadt Revolt

Answer 12

1921

The sailors’ execution for their criticism of the establishment of a one-party state demonstrated lenin’s unwillingness to tolerate any internal opposition

Question 13

introduction of the New Economic Policy

Answer 13

1921

Lenin’s pragmatism was demonstrated by his willingness to adopt some aspects of capitalism in order to stimulate the devastated economy. It was an ideological departure from pure communism.

Was essentially bridled capitalism. Compromised communist ideologies but showed Lenin’s willingness to reform and compromise to benefit the economy and the people. Improved terrible conditions created by the Civil War and War Communism. Ended with the death of Lenin.
Policies:
Return of private business
Workplace demilitarised
Cash wages
Stable currency
Markets and trading

State control of heavy industry
Some details:
Kronstadt revolt forced lenin to act
The new policy not only reversed the policies of war communism -politically and ideologically and ironically some of the demands of the kronstadt petition were met.
NEP was introduced primarily provide food for starving population that in turn would regain public confidence in the bolshevik government
It favoured the peasants through less tax and greater rewards and incentives for producing surplus
Small workers e.g. peasants were allowed to sell and trade privately while transport and banks were still owned and run by state communist lines.
As a result of the NEP grain harvest doubled between 1921 and 1925
NEP was introduced in order to save the regime from collapse
The NEP created the scissor crisis 1923
NEP had served its short term purpose of stopping famine and peasants revolt but had created new longer economic and social problems, which were never fully solved. The scissors opened and never closed.

Question 14

Treaty of Riga

Answer 14

1921

This peace treaty ended the Polish Soviet War and established new national borders.

Question 15

Formation of the USSR

Answer 15

1922

This was an initiative taken in a time of peace that established massive government control of land, people and resources.

Question 16

1922-1923

Answer 16

Lenin suffers strokes
Lenin’s illness left him paralysed and forced his withdrawal from public life in Moscow

Question 17

Scissor Crisis

Answer 17

October 1923

Trotsky identified significant problems between the increasing prices for industrial goods and lowering prices for agricultural goods

Question 18

Death of Lenin

Answer 18

21 January 1924

The outpouring of grief at Lenin’s death signalled the grief of the nation and the ending of his vision of the creation of a communist utopia.

Question 19

End of the NEP

Answer 19

1927

The NEP was ideologically unpopular and economically unsuccessful. It was always believed to be a temporary policy and was abandoned when Stalin came to power in 1928.

Question 20

Pipes

Answer 20

‘judged in terms of it own aspirations: the communist regime was a monumental failure’

Question 21

Figes

Answer 21

‘the people had failed to emancipate themselves. they had failed to become their own political masters, to free themselves from emperors and become citizens’