Consolidation of Communist dictatorship Flashcards
When the Bolsheviks came to power what 4 issues were they faced with?
What did this show?
- WW1 was ongoing
- Bolsheviks popular in urban areas not rural
- Food shortages ongoing
- Was still striking
- Lenin’s April theses of ‘Peace, Bread & Land’ had not been met
What 3 things did the Bolsheviks do to consolidate their power?
- Establishment of the one party state
- Removal of constituent assembly
- Ending Russian involvement in WW1 (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk)
What was the main thing done to establish the communist dictatorship?
- Establishment of the one party state
How did the establishment of the one party state work?
Example of increase of secret police?
- Ministers were abandoned & replaced with ‘people’s commissars’
- Sovnarkom replaced the cabinet
- Lenin determined to supress all political opposition
- Dec 1917: Sovnarkom established the Cheka (secret police) for combatting counter-revolution & sabotage
- March 1918 Cheka (120 employees) by 1921 Cheka had 143,000 agents
- Red Guards were demobilised & Red army formed
- Trotsky made head of Red army (March 1918)
- July 1918: New constitution made
What was the structure of the new constitution?
- Sovnarkom (ran the country)
- Central executive committee (Congress deputies elected the central executive committee)
- Congress of Soviets (deputies from local soviets were elected to the congress of soviets)
- Local Soviets (Workers & peasants elected local soviets)
What was the new constitution?
What did these events coincide with?
What was the outcome of this?
- July 1918: New constitution
- Decrees from Sovnarkom defined the one-party state
- Railways nationalised
- Government support for the Church ended
- Industries nationalised & all land ownership abolished
- Capital moved to Moscow to be more central
- Left-wing Sr’s attempted to overthrow the Bolsheviks in Moscow but were crushed
- The Red terror then began by the newly formed Cheka
- For the constitution to become politically enacted the Bolsheviks would have to win a Civil war
What was the nature of the new constitution?
(8 things)
- Appeared democratic
- In reality Lenin & Sovnarkom held all power
- Congress of Soviets only met at intervals throughout the year
- Although Sovnarkom was appointed by the Congress of Soviets, the Central Committee actually elected Sovnarkom
- Sovnarkom was made up entirely of Bolsheviks after left-wing Sr’s walked out
- July 1918: the ‘former classes’ wee banned from voting
- Workers votes worth 5 peasant votes
- Elections for the congress, the candidates were all Bolsheviks (no free choice of candidates)
Why did Lenin decide to remove the constituent assembly instead of demanding that they be subservient to the Sovnarkom?
- November (1917): elections were held & Bolsheviks secured 24% of the vote vs SR’s who secured 53% of the vote
- Lenin said ‘Elections prove nothing’
- January 5th 1918: Kadets had already been outlawed after expressing support for Alexei Kaledin (Cossack General who tried to rebel in the Don region)
- Bolsheviks wanted Maria Spiridovna to chair the assembly but were overruled by the SR’s who chose Viktor Chernov
How did the removal of the constituent assembly work?
What decree damaged the capability of parties previously in the constituent assembly?
- Assembly forcibly closed & never met again by red guards surrounding the building
- Some civilians demonstrated against this but were fired upon (12 killed)
- Decree of the press October 1917 curbed Mensheviks & SR’s ability to publish their own newspapers
- Bourgeoisie lost their right to vote in new government structure (July 1918)
- 1921: All political parties banned
3 examples that shows unpopularity of Bolshevik policies in removing of constituent assembly?
- While Lenin claimed his government represented the ‘people’ & higher form of ‘democracy’ some Bolsheviks & foreign socialists were concerned with Lenin’s actions
- 24% vote share constituent assembly elections vs 53% SR vote share
- Some Bolsheviks were not willing to accept the constituent assembly was a form of ‘bourgeoisie democracy’ as Lenin argued after its closure
What were 5 reasons why Lenin wanted to end Russian involvement in WW1?
- Both revolutions were a consequence of the failures of WW1 (June offensive1917)
- Bolsheviks had promised peace, soldiers fighting had supported the Bolsheviks & were needed when the inevitable civil war began
- Lenin was convinced Germany was about to have a socialist revolution (Rosa Luxemburg & Karl Liebknecht)
- Lenin knew the Russian army could not stop a German invasion, ending Bolshevik control
- Ending the war would help the economy to recover
How did Lenin’s views on ending the war differ from Trotsky’s?
- Trotsky was not okay with ending the war on bad terms for Russia
- Lenin was less concerned arguing Germany will have a revolution anyway so bad terms will be temporary (ideologically)
- Lenin knew the Russians could not stop the German advances so needed to compromise (practical)
When was the initial armistice agreement negotiated?
Who was put in charge of negotiations?
- 2nd December 1917
- Leon Trotsky
Explain the factionalism in the party over the war?
What did Trotsky’s methods result in?
- Bukharin led the ‘revolutionary war group’ wanting to continue fighting to defend socialism & Russia
- Trotsky dragged negotiations out hoping a German socialist revolution would occur in this time
- Trotsky called this approach ‘neither peace nor war’
- This angered German negotiators as they knew the Bolsheviks were trying to foster rebellion in the German army through propaganda
- Field Marshall Hindenberg complained Trotsky behaved as if the Russians were the victors rather than the defeated party seeking peace
What was the outcome of peace negotiations?
- Bolsheviks were forced to sign peace deal as the Germans began to advance further into Russia due to Trotsky pissing them off
- Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed 3rd March 1918
