Authoritarian State Flashcards
Define Authoritarian State
• strong central power and limited political freedoms
• ruling authority exercises control over public and private life
How did Lenin suppress opposition?
• Removed ‘bourgeois’ classes right to vote
• Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries couldn’t publish newspapers
• 5000 Mensheviks arrested & SRs blamed for Lenin assassination attempt
How did Lenin create a one party state?
• Banned all other parties in 1921
• Rejected coalition governments
—> Insisted on exclusive Bolshevik rule
• Dissolution of constituent assembly
—> Lenin dissolved it when bolsheviks
failed to win majority
• Suppression of independent
organisations
—> Trade unions and workers
committees suppressed or brought
under party control
• Centralised decision making
What was the Cheka?
• Secret police used by Lenin which had powers to arrest and terrorise any suspected counter revolutionaries
—> Created climate of fear
• Cheka used for grain requisitions
—> Lenin ordered hanging of 100
kulaks
