Consolidation of a Communist dicatorship

Question 1

Establishment of one-party control

Answer 1

• Bolsheviks claimed they were acting for the proletariat
• Lenin didn’t allow democracy - he believed allowing ideas and votes represented the old system
• Believed that for a dictatorship of the proletariat, counter revolutionary forces need to be repressed
  -Ruthless methods

Question 2

Removal of the Constituent Assembly

Answer 2

• Lenin permitted elections in Nov 1917
• Bols got 10 mil votes and 175 seats
• SRs got 21.8 mil votes and 410 seats
• Bols immediately questioned the result
• CA met on Jan 5th and Kadets had been outlawed
• Victor Chernov was elected chair
• CA was closed and civilians demonstrated and 12 were killed
• Decree on press in 1917 curbed ability for other parties to release newspapers
• Bolsheviks prevented others from voting
• Political parties banned in 2021

Question 3

Ending WWI involvement

Answer 3

• Bols promised peace because the PG couldn’t deliver
• Germany had occupied a lot of Russian territory and would demand concession
• Lenin and Trotsky had differences
• Lenin was convinced that revolution would engulf Germany so a peace agreement would be temporary
• Lenin was willing to accept any peace agreement
• Bukharin led ‘revolutionary war group’
• Trotsky dragged on, hoping that Germans would have a rev
• ‘Neither peace nor war’
• Germans became angered and continued their push into Russia
• Treaty of BL signed on the 3rd of March
• Russia lost Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine
• Lost 62 mil people, 2 mil sq km and 1/3 or agri produce, 26% railways and 74% of iron and core
• Lenin threatened to resign twice before getting his way
• Permanent rev became a priority
• Communist state was established in March 1918

Question 4

One-party state

Answer 4

• Sovnarkom issued a number of decrees in 1918
• Jan 1918, worker were put in charge of factories
• Red Army of workers and peasants established
• Capital moved to Moscow to centralise power
• Church and state were separated - removed right to own property
• Adopted Gregorian calendar
• Industry was nationalised
• Land ownership was abolished

Question 5

1918 Constitution

Answer 5

• RFSFR was established
• Stated that supreme power lies with the All- Russian Congress of Soviets made up from deputies from local soviets
• Congress elected Sovnarkom
• Vote was reserved for workers
• Workers vote was weighted 5:1 to peasants
• Sovnarkom was chosen by Bolshevik central committee in practice
• Sovnarkom met more than Congress
• Centralised power
• Integrations of minorities
• ‘he who does not work shall not eat’