Chapter 17 (3)

Question 1

Causes of the Red Terror

Answer 1

-Assassination attempt on Lenin in August 1918
-He believed that in order to preserve a Marxist Revolution they would need to be prepared to crush their enemies
-Weed out the enemies of the new regime and deter others who may have joined them

Question 2

How significant was the Red Terror?

Answer 2

-Created the concept of the USSR and a one party state
-Removed the majority of opposition
-Caused a sense of fear as many were sent to concentration camps
-500 SR and Mensheviks were shot in Petrograd
-Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 were shot between 1918 and 1921
-8,000 priests were executed by 1921

Question 3

Felix Dzerzhinsky

Answer 3

1877-1926
Became involved in Marxist groups as a student
Spent many years in Tsarist prisons
Played a role in the military revolutionary committee in the October Revolution
Rewarded with the dictatorship of the Cheka

Question 4

Cheka

Answer 4

Secret police under Lenin
Instrument of terror to deal with opposition
Arrested kadets, SRs, and Menshevik leaders
Used force to break the civil service strikes ad deal with demonstrations against them
Class warfare was used to terrorise the middle classes and all hostile social groups

Question 5

Assassination of the Romanovs

Answer 5

17th July 1918
Debate over who initiated the attack however it was important that the Communists blurred these lines in order to not draw the blame to them
Lenin did not want to antagonise the German’s as Nicholas’ wife was German

Question 6

Factions

Answer 6

Lenin banned factions in 1921
In order to stop differing opinions being spread within the party

Question 7

Kirov Affair

Answer 7

1934
17th Party Congress
Stalin announced that the ‘anti-leninist opposition’ had been eradicated
Kirov made a speech and received a long standing ovation for his speech where as Stalin only had two supporters
Murdered by Nikolayev who’s wife was having an affair with Kirov just after the congress
There are links between Stalin and the murder to remove opposition

Question 8

Stalin’s power struggles

Answer 8

• Bukharin was re-elected to the Central Committee in 1930
  -Had opposition in the 17th Party Congress due to grain seizures and rapid industrialisation
  -Received 150 negative votes in the election to the Central Committee
  -Stalin was no longer ‘General Secretary’ but was now ‘Secretary of Equal Rank’ with Kirov, Zhdanov, and Kaganovich

Question 9

Crisis of 1932

Answer 9

-Stalin’s wife committed suicide in November 1932
-Unhinged Stalin as in her note she criticised all his policies
-Famine in the countryside and workers’ strikes