Constituent Assembly + Brest-Litovsk

Question 1

CA elections went ahead why

Answer 1

• Bolsheviks had promised (Since 1905 Lenin had repeatedly referred to this demand
  as ‘one of the three pillars of Bolshevism’. (The other two
  were the nationalization of land and the 8-hour day.)
• moderates in party commited to idea

Question 2

CA elections results

Answer 2

• Bols = 10 million votes, 24%
• If we take the northern and western fronts, the vote polled
  by the Bolsheviks amounted to over a million, compared
  with 420,000 votes polled by the Socialist
  Revolutionaries.
  0 In the two capitals, the Bolshevik vote was four times larger than that of
  the Socialist Revolutionaries, and nearly 16 times larger than that of the
  Mensheviks.
• 87% of worker vote
• 97% on Western Front
• turnout = 48%
• SRs = 41%
• Mensheviks 3, Kadets 5

Question 3

Bolshevik opposition to CA reasons

Answer 3

• workers > Peasants “The country cannot be equal to the town under the
  historical conditions of this epoch. The town
  inevitably leads the country. The country inevitably
  follows the town.’ Lenin
• CA is bourgeois “‘To hand over power to the CA would again
  be to compromise with the malignant
  bourgeoisie”, rallying point for counter-rev
• Soviets > CA “a republic of Soviets is a higher form of democracy than the usual
  bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly’, Thesis on CA”

Question 4

Bolsheviks delaying CA

Answer 4

• opening of the Assembly was postponed indefinitely by Sovnarkom on
  20 November, just eight days before it was due to convene
  oppoaition forms
• 28 Nov, 50,00 protest (students, officers, civil workers, printers, artisans)
• opposition parties formed a Union for the Defence of the CA
• 5 January martial law in Petrograd, 50,00 marhced, 10 killed (incl workers frm Obukhovsky munitions plant)

Question 5

CA dismissal

Answer 5

• Menshe and SR majority condemned October coup, Bols and Left SRs walked out, forcibly disperesed, next day doors closed
  reactions
• ; given orders to shoot the democracy’ Gorky
• “the remedy provided by Lenin and Trotsky was
  worse than the disease it was supposed to cure”
  Rosa Luxembourg
• ‘In Russia, passed almost unnoticed’ Victor Serge
• . On January 5, the Bolsheviks made it unmistakably clear that they did not have to listen to the voice of the people because they were the “people.” Pipes
• lacked a sense of national cohesion capable of inspiring the population to give up immediate and personal interests for the sake of the common good. Pipes
• The perceived alternatives to consensus and compromise were dictatorship and civil war. It seemed, nevertheless, that these alternatives were likely to be chosen by a turbulent and sharply polarized society which had thrown off the reins of government. – Fitzpatrick
• ”, it was only a distant thing in the city, dominated by the ‘chiefs’ of the various parties, which they did not understand” Figes
  = In order to consolidate the Soviet power, the old, bourgeois state machine had to be shattered and destroyed.. , it was necessary to destroy the survivals of CPSU
• ‘Lenin’s theoretical considerations went
  hand in hand with sharpshooters’
  Trotsky

Question 6

B-L party split - Trotsky faction

Answer 6

• 16/63 votes at broad party meeting 8 Jan
• ‘neither peace, nor war’
• play for time - spread propaganda to German troops

Question 7

B-L party split - Bukharin faction

Answer 7

• 32.63 votes
• suppoerted by left SRs, Petrograd and Moscow Party Committees
• a separate peace with imperialist Germany would represent a betrayal of the international cause
• ‘revolutionary war’, consciousness roused by German invasion
• inspire other abroad

Question 8

B-L party split - Lenin

Answer 8

• 15/63 votes
• 1st task = consolidation of revolution in Russia
• ‘It is a question’, Lenin warned, ‘of signing the peace terms now or signing the death sentence of the Soviet
  Government three weeks later
• ‘The bourgeoisie has to be throttled and for that we need both hands free.’
• if we embark on a war, our government will be swept away.’

Question 9

B-L negotiations, Germany advances

Answer 9

• 18th Feb
• party meeting 17th: Lenin’s demand that the treaty should be accepted at once lost 6/5
• Trotsky policy of waiting for attack before signing adopted
• meeting 19th - Trotsky switched to lenin, passed 7/5 (otherwise would be left leader of anti-peace faction, Lenin would have gone to ranka nd file)
• end of 5th day, captured 150 miles (as much as previous 3 years

Question 10

B-L terms

Answer 10

accepted 3 march (signed)

• 54% nidustrial enterprises
• 26% railways
• 89% iron ore and coal
• 62 mill people
• 32% farmland + Ukraine
• 3 bilion roubles i reparations

Question 11

B-L outcomes

Answer 11

• resentment from nationalists (officers and Kadets0
• rev propaganda against Germany and Australia had to stop
• soviets and socialist govts overthrowns in Uk, Lat and Est
• Left SRs resign from Sovnarkom 19 March, form oppositio in Soviet Executive together with BUkharin and supporters
• 13 November 1918 regained territory