Groups

Question 1

Aristocracy

Answer 1

• Land Decree saw their estates become the property of peasants
• 10 Nov 1917: all tsarist ranks, titles and privileges abolished
• Targeted by Bols.
• Forced into work gangs to clear rubbish or snow during Red Terror

Question 2

Peasants

Answer 2

• 26 Oct 1917: Decree on Land (peasants given right to seize land from gentry and redistribute)
• Committees of the Poor (poor peasants, Kombedy, who were required to confiscate surplus grain)
• Subjected to the Prodraverstka so they stopped growing surplus grain
• Retaliated with arm resistance
• Subjected to famine (famine bread and cannibalism)
• Diseases were common (typhus, cholera and lice
• 1920s: Volunteers travelled the countryside teaching people to read

Question 3

Kulaks

Answer 3

• Kulak = Rich peasant.
• Under Stolypin, the PG, and State Capitalism, some peasants had become wealthy through grain profiteering.
• Lenin believed they represented the worst of the old regime
• Also blamed for poor harvests and food shortages in the cities “Lenin was convinced that the food shortages were due to kulaks hoarding surplus grain” (Perfect et al)
• Kulaks sided with White Armies during the Civil War.
• Aug 1918: Lenin issues his ‘Hanging Order’.
• Scapegoat for Bols. (Figes) & Class warfare
• “Comrades! You need to hang – hang without fail, and do it so that the public sees – at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers. Let’s choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks.” (Lenin)
• Target of propaganda during civil war

Question 4

Workers

Answer 4

• Under government control
• Repressed with extended work hours and limited rations
• Free workers reading rooms created under War Communism
• Subbotniki
• 1919: nationwide strikes put down violently by Bols.
• 1921: industrial output fell to just 15% of pre-war levels

Question 5

Bourgeoisie

Answer 5

• Burzhui
• Bourgeois managers retained because of their expertise (SC)
• Hardest jobs under War Communism
• 1918: class-based food rationing
• Targeted by Bols.
• 1 May 1918: decree banning inheritance which was a direct attack on private property

Question 6

Women

Answer 6

• Dec 1917: Decree on Women’s Rights
• Dec 1917: Decree on Marriage which made marriage consensual and divorce easy to access and a civil matter
• Equal pay guaranteed
• Nov 1920: Abortion legalised
• Many women still expected to do traditional roles and never fully gained the same respect as men

Question 7

Nationalities

Answer 7

• 2 Nov 1917: Decree on National Independence
• Commissar of Nationalities was Josef Stalin
• Bols. Were unwilling to grant national independence which was a pragmatic move due to losses from Treaty of B-L
• Poles and Cossacks wanted greater autonomy
• Reason for fighting in Civil War
• June 1919: Finland declares war on Bols.
• Polish-Soviet War