Factors That Helped Establish Communist Control Flashcards
What were the five factors that helped establish communist control?
- Early decrees
- Constituent assembly
- Civil war
- 1921 party congress
- Control over former Russian empire
What were the early decrees? (1)
- Oct 1917 Decree on Land
- Oct 1917 Decree on Peace
- Nov 1917 Workers Decree
- Apr 1918 Decree on Workers Control
Outcome of the early decrees (1)
- Popular support from workers
- Breathing space from ending the war
- Soviet structure was democratic
How many seats and votes did the Bolsheviks have at the Constituent Assembly? (2)
- 175 seats
- 9 mil votes
How many seats and votes did the Socialist Revolutionists have at the Constituent Assembly? (2)
- 410 seats
- 21 mil votes
Who were the Bolsheviks’s opponents in 1918 and what did they want? (2)
- Some army generals: Tsarist
- Other generals: military dictatorship
- Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks: more democratic government
- Anarchists: abolish all gov
- Regional states: independence from Russia
When did the civil war break out? (3)
Summer 1918
War Communism (3)
- Communists v reactionary whites
- Grain requisitioned from peasants to feed soldiers
Use of Party, Nomenklatura and Politburo (3)
- Lenin relied on political centralisation, working through loyal party nomenklatura, rather than more democratic soviets
- Used terror to suppress opposition
Role of Red Army and Trotsky’s appointment of officers (3)
- Trotsky put Tsarist generals back in charge of army which caused outrage among idealists
- Paid off as Red Army became disciplined and a successful fighting force
- Very rigid system of discipline
Cheka and use of terror (3)
- 1917 created Cheka (secret police): defended the rev
- Raided anarchist organisations/closed down opposition newspapers/expelled Mensheviks and Social Revolutionists from soviets
- Imprison/torture/kill any threat
e.g terror in Cheka (3)
- Kremenchuk, Ukraine: church leaders impaled to death
- In city: Oryol victims frozen and put on display as ice statues
- Women captured were routinely raped
Structure of the soviet state from 1921 (3)
1) Sovnarkom (approved politburo decisions)
2) All Russia Congress of Soviets
3) Local soviets (party members elected onto the soviets)
4) The Russian people
Who was the first ever woman cabinet member in the world? (3)
Alexandra Kollontai
Structure of the party (3)
1) Politburo (only created in 1919 due to need in civil war for smaller/faster decision making body)
2) Central committee
3) Party congress
4) Local party
5) Party members
Ways in which the party took control of gov (3)
- Power passed to local soviets at time of october rev
- These sent delegates to congress of soviets
- Ballot ringing/intimidation used to ensure party members were elected onto soviets
- Chairman of soviets often a local party member
- 1919 onwards politburo took over from sovnarkom
- Party members guaranteed senior positions in state
- Later other political parties outlawed
- Lenin head of party and state
Factors for 1921 Party congress (4)
- Peasant revolts: Tambov
- Political opposition
- Strikes in cities Petrograd and Kronstadt
Outcomes of 1921 party congress (4)
- Banning of factions inside party entitled ‘On Party Unity’
- NEP (New Economic Policy)
- ‘Democratic centralism’: one party dominance
Peasant revolts: Tambov (4)
- Led by Aleksandr Antonov
- Rebellion against grain requisitioning and Cheka brutality
- Force of 50,000 anti-communist revolts
Political opposition (4)
- Workers Opposition: wanted to reintroduce workers control of industry
- Democratic Centralists: wanted to make communist party more democratic
Strikes in cities Petrograd and Kronstadt (4)
- Petrograd: Red Army responded to strikes against communist policies by opening fire on unarmed workers
- Kronstadt: sailors at naval base rebelled/demanded reforms (immediate free/fair election of new soviets, release of all Menshevik/Anarchist/SR prisoners, restoration of freedom of speech/press, abolition of Cheka, end to war communism)
What is democratic centralism? (4)
- Policy is decided centrally and is binding on all members
- Party embodied will of the people so voting was not necessary
Forming of the USSR (5)
- Party gained control over outlying regions of old Russian empire
- Local Bolsheviks staged unrest
- Red Army troops sent in
- Tight control by party
- Led to agreeing to form USSR, centralising control over these states from Moscow
