Establishing Communist Rule - Lenin Flashcards
How many did the Red Terror execute between September 1918 - February 1919?
between 50k and 140k
When were non-Bolshevik newspapers banned?
December 1917
What were law courts replaced?
Revolutionary Tribunals
When was the Tambov revolt and what was it against?
Autumn 1920 - 50,000 fought against war communism
When was the Kronstadt rebellion and what did they want?
March 1921
- wanted a return to democracy
- free trade-unions
- an end to grain requisitioning from peasants
What two factions within the communist party did Lenin want to get rid of?
- Workers opposition
- Democratic Centralists
How many soldiers did the Red Army have by 1920?
5 million
What was the treaty signed in 1918 to exit the war?
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
What were the effects of the civil war?
- million died
- economy severely weakened
- food shortages
What was the length of the working day in 1928?
8 hours
What were the successes of Lenin’s New Economic Policy?
- Productivity in farming returned to pre-war levels
- economic growth was particularily strong in 1924 + 25, therefore increasing popularity of Bolshevik leadership
- The electrification program
Failures of New Economic Policy
- unemployment remained high as many people moved to towns
- exports to other countries never reached the levels of 1913
What was the name of the government in 1918?
Sovnarkom
Who could stand for elections under Lenin?
Only members of the Bolshevik party
Who were the first members of the Politburo?
Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky and Stalin
When did Lenin die?
1924
When were opposition parties banned?
1921
Why did the Bolsheviks need to defeat their opponents so quickly and violently after the october revolution?
- they were trying to achieve something radical
- their revolution was not very popular
- they had forced their way in through violence and would need to maintain this to stay in power
Why is Lenin’s legacy seen as authoritarian?
- because of what came after ; he established the structures which stalin would use to terrorise opponents and create an even more dictatorial style of governing
What were the 3 decrees Lenin proposed in late 1917?
- Decree on Land (gave peasants the right to seize land from nobility + church)
- Decree of Peace (committed the government to withdrawing from WW1)
- Workers’ Decrees (established 8 hour maximum working day + minimum wage)
Why were Lenin’s early decrees beneficial to establishing communist rule?
- they won popular support from workers, peasants + soldiers
- ending WW1 gave the gov ‘breathing space’ to rebuild the economy + construct the new government
Initial pre-civil war failures of Lenin’s Sovnarkom
- Had little real power
- Extremely disorganised
- Stalin’s Commissariat for Nationalities was just a desk in the corner
- The commissariat of Fianance was initially a sofa with a bit of paper bearing the words ‘commissariat of Fianance’
How democratic was Russia in 1918?
- Lenin claimed it was more democratic than the West
- Russia was not yet a one party state
- The policies do reflect the wishes of the people
How did Lenin use terror?
- Lenin initiated the use of the Secret Police in 1917
- He used the Cheka to crush the contituent assembly on the 5th of January 1918 when the Social Revolutionaries got more votes
- Ordered the arrest of 5000 Mensheviks in 1921
- Kronstadt mutiny - bruttally put to an end by the Red Army
How does Lenin’s terror differ from Stalins?
- Lenin did not use terror against his own party members while Stalin did
- He would openly criticise his opponents, such as in his testamnt of 1924, but would not physically harm them
What was the one day the Constituent Assembly was open?
5th January 1918
How many did the Red Army deport in order to supress the Kronstadt rebellion?
100,000
