Chapter 12 - The establishment of Bolshevik government Flashcards
The establishment of Bolshevik government
1
Q
When did Lenin return to Russia?
A
3rd April 1917
2
Q
What did Lenin do when he first got to Russia?
Speech
A
- Finland Station in Petrograd
- rousing speech
- the gist of his words were later written down in the ‘April Thesis’ and published in the Pravda
3
Q
What did the April Thesis demand?
A
- power should be transferred to the soviets
- the war should be brought to an immediate end
- all land should be taken over by the State and re-allocated to peasants by local soviets
Lenin also stressed a no-cooperation policy with the PG, which gave rise to the motto “all power to the soviets”
4
Q
Slogan
A
“peace, bread and land”
5
Q
What were Lenin’s beliefs on revolution?
A
- the Russian middle class was too weak to carry through a full ‘bourgeois revolution’
- to allow the middle classes to continue in power was to hold the inevitable proleterian revolution back
6
Q
What were intial reactions the Lenin’s reappearances?
A
- some Bolsheviks feared that Lenin had grown out of touch and that his radical proposals would do more harm than good
- allegations that Lenin was in the pay of Germans
- Mensheviks feared Lenin would undermine what they had been doing and, by stirring up discontent, would provoke a right-wing reaction
- Some though Lenin’s call to oppose the PG was unrealistic since the Bolsheviks had only 26,000 members and were still in a minority among the socialists
- the Bolsheviks were divided among themselves over whether to cooperate with the PG or not
7
Q
By when had Lenin won over the majority of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party?
A
The end of April.
He had won majority through his personality
8
Q
What happened at the first ‘All-Russian Congress of Soviets’ in Petrograd on the 3rd of June 1917?
A
- passed a vote of confidence for the PG
- 543 votes to 126
- however, Trotsky decided to fully support the Bolsheviks
9
Q
When were the July Days?
A
3rd - 5th of July 1917
10
Q
What were the July Days?
A
- increase in grain prices (doubled) due to a poor harvest and a shortage of fuel and raw materials
- led to the closing of 586 factories
- also the loss of 100,000 jobs
- 20,000 armed sailors from Kronstadt joined workers and soldiers on the street
- chanted Bolshevk slogans, attacked property, looted shops, and seized the railway stations and other key buildings
11
Q
What was the result of the July Days?
A
- warrants for the arrests of Bolsheviks
- Lenin had to flee
- rumours about Lenin spread (paid by Germans, for example)
- Bolshevik propaganda was burned
- seemed the Bolsheviks had lost their chance
12
Q
The Kornilov Affair
A
- Bolsheviks released from prison
- Kerensky (Prime Minister) supplied them with arms over fears of Kornilov
- supposedly defending the PG
- Bolsheviks worked with the Red Guards
13
Q
What was the result of the Kornilov affair?
A
- Bolsheviks gained the reputation of having been the only group to have opposed Kornilov consistently
- Lenin sent the order from Finland: keep up pressure and set up ‘Committees to save the Revolution’ were set up throughout the country
- Bolsheviks were elected in increased numbers
14
Q
How much did Bolshevik support increase by (%) between June and December 1917?
A
164%
15
Q
What was the number of the increase in Bolshevik membership Feb-Oct 1917? What were the Bolsheviks doing to increase membership?
A
23,000 in Feb
200,000 by the beginning of October
At the time, Bolsheviks were:
- producing 41 newspapers
- maintaining a force of 100,000 Red Guards in the capital’s factories
16
Q
Limitation with the Bolshevik party’s effectiveness?
Structure
A
- weren’t a tightly organised or discpilined group
- tended to go along with events rather than initiate
17
Q
What happened in mid-September 1917 in the Bolshevik party?
A
- Lenin demanded a revolution and the seizure of power
- Zinoviev and Kamenev feared that Russia wasn’t economucally ready for revolution, so they urged restraint
- on 12th Septemeber Lenin wrote: “History will not forgive us if we do not assume power now”
- but 3 days later, the committee voted against a coup
- Zinoviev and Kamenev suggested that nothing be done before the results of the Constituant Assembly elections
18
Q
What happened on the 7th of October?
Bolshevik takeover
A
- Lenin secretly returns to Petrograd
- attend Central Committee meeting
- win them over in person to the policy of taking power immediately
- appointed commissars to military units - controlled over 200,000 Red Guards, 60,000 baltic sailors and 150,000 soldiers
19
Q
What happened on the 10th of October?
Bolshevik takeover
A
- Lenin attends a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee
- succeeded (vote of 10 to 2) in persuading them that revolution should be immediate
- Zinoviev and Kamenev refused to agree
20
Q
What happened on the 20th of October?
Bolshevik takeover
A
The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet meet for the first time
21
Q
What happened on the 24th-25th of October?
Bolshevik takeover
A
- led by the Bolsheviks and organised by the Military Revolutionary Committee
- armed workers and 5,000 sailors and soldiers from Kronstadt take over key buildings and communication centres in Petrograd
- these key buildings included the telephone exchange, the post office, railway stations, the news agency, the state bank, bridges, and power station
- in the morning 3,000 further troops arrived
- on the evening of the 25th of October, the government met in an emergency session
- Red Guards soldiers and sailors surrounded the palace
- a blank shot from the guns of the battleship Aurora was heard - signal for the beginning of Bolshevik attack
22
Q
What happened on the 26th-27th of October?
Bolshevik takeover
A
- remaining members of the PG are arrested by the Bolsheviks
- revolution is announced at the second Congress of Soviets - where 670 delegates attend
- moderates walk out, leaving a Bolsheviks and SR coalition, which played into the Bolsheviks hands
- the congress adopts Lenin’s decree on peace and decree on land and appoints the first Soviet government - the Council of the People’s Commissars (or Sovnarkom)
- Lenin is the chairman
23
Q
What happened in December 1917?
Bolshevik takeover
A
the Cheka is established (secret police)
24
Q
Comments on the size of the October Revolution in 1917
A
- relatively small-scale affair
- Trotsky claimed that 25,000-30,000 were actively involved (5% of all the workers and soldiers in the city)
- may have been smaller
- but it suited the Bolsheviks to claim that it was larger
- much of Petrograd remained unaffected by the disturbances - trams and taxis ran as normal; restaurants, theatres and cinemas remained open
25
The Sovnarkom
- only Bolsheviks
- Lenin = chairman
- one female commissar = Alexandra Kollontai
26
Decrees issued by the Sovnarkom
27th October:
- decree on peace promised to end the war
- decree on land abolished private ownership of land and legitimised peasant seizures without compensation to landlords (reduced peasant support for SRs and provided space for the consolidation of Bolshevik rule)
November:
- nationality decree promised self-determination to the peoples of the former Russian Empire
- new legal system of elected people's courts
- government outlawed sex discrimination and gave women the right to own property; decree against titles, all to become 'citizens'
December:
- military decree removed class-ranks, saluting and military decorations from the army; officers were to be elected directly by the soldiers' soviets
- decrees on the Church nationalised Church land and removed marriage and divorce from Church control
- nationalisation of banks ended the private flow of capital
27
Issues with the Bolshevik positon
| issues with the banks
took the state bank 10 days to hand over reserves. And they did this only under the threat of armed intervention.
28
Initial opposition to the Bolshevik rise to power
- Kerensky rallied an army comprising of 18 Cossack regiments and a small force of SR cadets and officers
- the Bolsheviks looked weak against this threat
- Lenin had no direct contact with troops at the front and the Petrograd garrison had returned to their homes in the countryside
- 10 days of fighting
- railway workers and communications workers went on strike in protest against the emergence of a one-party government
- Bolshevik agitators persuaded some of Kerensky's troops to defect saved the Bolshevik revolution
29
When did Lenin allow left-wing SR's to join the Sovnarkom?
December 1917
It was made clear to them that they had to follow Bolshevik lead
30
Bolshevik means of combating opposition
- propaganda campaign against political and class enemies - particularly the bourgeoise
- the closure of anti-Bolshevik newspapers
- a purge of the civil service
- the establishment of the Cheka in Dec 1917
- leading Kadets, right-wing SRs and Mensheviks were rounded up and imprisoned in December
31
The Constituent Assembly elections
| Statistics
SRs = 21.8million votes; 410 seats; 53%
Bolsheviks = 10 million votes; 175 seats; 24%
32
When did the Constituent Assembly first meet?
5th January 1918.
But Lenin dissolved it.
33
What did Lenin believe
| the Bolsheviks understood...
Bolsheviks understood the needs of the proleteriat better than the proleteriat themselves
