Changes Under the Bolsheviks (1918-24)

Question 1

What was the purpose of the Red Terror and why did it start?

Answer 1

• The Red Terror was mass killings, torture, and oppression that was used against people suspected to be working against the revolution
• It started after an attempt on Lenin’s life in August 1918

Question 2

By the end of the Civil War, how many were killed? Imprisoned?

Answer 2

• Killed: 200,000
• Imprisoned: 85,000

Question 3

When was the Cheka set up and what did it do?

Answer 3

• December 1917
• Used terror to back up new measures, close down other political parties and to put down any opposition

Question 4

What was the Politburo, when was it set up and what did Lenin use it for?

Answer 4

• The policy-making committee of the Communist Party
• 1919
• Was meant to only make decisions on urgent issues, but soon made decisions on all major issues

Question 5

How else did the Bolsheviks centralise government?

Answer 5

• Key members of the Communist Party were also key members of the government

Question 6

What odd belief did Lenin hold?

Answer 6

• He didn’t believe in democracy
• He thought that people owned the Bolsheviks obedience and that they had a duty to direct everyone else

Question 7

What was War Communism and when was it introduced?

Answer 7

• State control of industry and agriculture
• Introduced in 1918

Question 8

List 7 reasons why War Communism was introduced.

Answer 8

• The Red Army needed supplies
• There were food shortages in the cities- more people died of famine than war
• The economy was in ruins
• Economic centralisation was a communist belief
• There was inflation
• Peasants wanted land but didn’t want to sell crops
• Peasants hid any extra crops they grew

Question 9

What did peasants do in response to War Communism, and what did Lenin do as a result of that? What did that cause?

Answer 9

• Peasants grew less crops and raised fewer animals
• Lenin sent ‘requisition squads’ to take grain by force
• These armed Bolsheviks and Cheka officers even took the grain that was meant to be sown the following autumn
• This caused a famine from 1920-21, which killed 7 million people

Question 10

When and why did the Kronstadt sailors rebel?

Answer 10

• March 1921, due to war communism
• They wanted new elections, socialist political prisoners to be freed and the rights to free speech, press, assembly and trade unions

Question 11

Why was the Kronstadt mutiny particularly shocking?

Answer 11

The sailors had been Lenin’s most loyal supporters

Question 12

What happened to the Kronstadt sailors in the end? At what cost to the Bolsheviks?

Answer 12

• Trotsky sent 60,000 troops to put down the rebellion
• Over the next 3 weeks, 20,000 of these men were either killed or injured
• Any of the sailors that survived were executed or sent to gulags

Question 13

When and why was NEP introduced? What were 4 of its features?

Answer 13

• The New Economic Policy was introduced in 1921
• It was a temporary replacement for War Communism that was needed for recovery after years of war
• Peasants could sell extra crops; the more they produced, the lower their taxes; only factories in key industries and with more than 20 workers stayed nationalised; Nepmen (private traders) prospered

Question 14

How and why did Lenin convince other Bolsheviks to accept NEP?

Answer 14

• Lenin emphasised the need for unity after the Kronstadt Mutiny

Question 15

When was the scissor crisis, and what happened?

Answer 15

• In 1923 there was so much food that crops lost their value, while the price of manufactured goods skyrocketed
• The government quickly fixed it

Question 16

Give figures for coal, steel and electricity under NEP.

Answer 16

1921-> 25
- Coal: x2
- Steel: x11+
- Electricity: x5+

Question 17

How did culture change under Lenin?

Answer 17

• The Commissariat of Public Enlightenment was set up
• There was a move away from ‘high art’ (opera, ballet, fine art) and towards ‘Socialist Realism’ (focus on the lives of workers and the Red Army)
• Writers could write anything so long as it wasn’t counter revolutionary
• ‘Proletkino’ was set up in the 1920s to create films for the masses

Question 18

List 5 ways education changed under Lenin.

Answer 18

• From 1919, all children were meant to receive 9 years of free education (by 1923 more than 50% of pupils had dropped out due to financial pressure)
• Education became more practical and technical
• Learning about revolution and communism was compulsory
• Teachers could not discipline pupils
  Youth groups:
• The Pioneers were for children under the age of 15
• The Komsomol was from ages 15 to 20, and they took propaganda into villages

Question 19

How did the position of women change in relation to employment?

Answer 19

• During WW1 the number of women working in industry doubled
• After the Civil War and the resulting discharge of 5 million men, men were given preference for jobs
• This forced many women into unskilled work or unemployment

Question 20

How did the position of women change in relation to marriage?

Answer 20

Lenin believed married women were hardly better off than slaves.
- Divorce was made easier to obtain
- In 1919 the USSR had the highest marriage rate, but by the mid-1920s they had the highest divorce rate in Europe (by 1927 two thirds of Moscow marriages ended in divorce)
- Women were also abandoned when pregnant as men initiated 70% of divorces
- Paid maternity leave was guaranteed 2 months before and after a birth
- In 1920 abortion was legalised in all state hospitals (the first country to do so)

Question 21

How did the position of women change in relation to politics?

Answer 21

• Zhenotdel (the Women’s Department of Sovnarkom) was set up in 1919
• It was led by Alexandra Kollontai, the first woman to be a member of a European government
• Its aims were related to issues such as education rather than political activism
• Women were reportedly beaten by their husbands for their involvement with politics
• In 1917 women formed 10% of the party, and by 1928 this had increased to only 12%

Question 22

When was the USSR set up? What areas did it include?

Answer 22

• The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics/ Soviet Union was set up in 1922
• It included traditionally independent areas and areas gained during the Civil War

Question 23

When did Lenin die?

Answer 23

21st January 1924