Lenin

Question 1

What was the name of the Bolshevik-only party crated after the October Revolution?

Answer 1

The Snovnarkom

Question 2

When did Lenin disperse the Constituent Assembly?

Answer 2

January 1918

Question 3

When was the Ban on Factions issued?

Answer 3

1921- at the 10th Party Congress

Question 4

When did the Bolsheviks formally adopt the title “Communist Party”?

Answer 4

March 1918

Question 5

When was the Cheka created?

Answer 5

December 1917- to supress counter revolutionaries

Question 6

When did the Red Terror begin?

Answer 6

After at attempt on Lenin’s life on 30th August 1918

Question 7

How did Lenin use the terror?

Answer 7

. To intimidate the rural population into compliance
. To eliminate political opposition

Question 8

What was the Chistka

Answer 8

Cleansing of the Party- 220,000 members were purged and by 1919, the party membership had halved

Question 9

When had a Communist Dictatorship officially emerged?

Answer 9

1922

Question 10

When was the Politburo established?

Answer 10

1919- soon took precedence over the Snovnarkom

Question 11

What was the Nomenklatura

Answer 11

A body set up in 1923 to make sure that key personnel in public bodies were drawn from dedicated Bolsheviks.

Question 12

What was the food situation like?

Answer 12

Severe winter of 1920-21 resulted in food shortages. On 22nd Jan 1921, bread ration was reduced by a third.

Question 13

When was the Kronsdadt uprising?

Answer 13

1921- led by Stepan Petrichenko

Question 14

What was the result of the Kronsdadt uprising?

Answer 14

10,000 were killed and a further 2,500 shot later by the cheka

Question 15

What was grain production like?

Answer 15

Grain production fell to dangerously low levels due to requisitioning

Question 16

what was the Tambov uprising?

Answer 16

August 1920- January 1921: The largest peasant revolt during the Civil War, led by Alexander Antov. 240,000 deaths

Question 17

How many deaths were there at the hands of the Cheka during Lenin’s Terror?

Answer 17

Records put the number of deaths between 1918-1920 at nearly 13,000, but estimates put the real figure at around 500,000

Question 18

What was “Class Warfare”?

Answer 18

As a means of levelling society, Lenin encouraged attacks on the bourgeoise

Question 19

What was the “Commissariat of Popular Enlightenment”

Answer 19

A cultural body encouraging a movement away from “high art” which was considered bourgeois. It had 100,000 members in 1920

Question 20

When was the Russian Civil War?

Answer 20

1918-1921

Question 21

What was Lenin’s first economic policy?

Answer 21

State Capitalism: 1917-1918

Question 22

Why was State Capitalism a failure?

Answer 22

. Worker’s Control Decree- Workers were unable to run the factories efficiently
. Land Decree- Peasants were unable to share the land equitably

Question 23

What was War Communism?

Answer 23

Economic policy during the Civil War, served as an emergency footing

Question 24

What were the features of War Communism?

Answer 24

. Harsh rationing (used as a form of class warfare)
. Return to severe labour discipline
. Gain requisitioning
. No private ownership or trade

Question 25

How did Peasants react to grain requisitioning

Answer 25

Resisted violently

Question 26

What was the “Food-Supplies Dictatorship”?

Answer 26

Established in May 1918- Red Guard soldiers forcibly removed grain from peasants

Question 27

What was the “Decree on Nationalisation”?

Answer 27

June 1918- Administered by the Veshenka, brought the economy under a much more rigid socialist structure

Question 28

What was the consequence of War Communism?

Answer 28

Nearly brought Russia to economic collapse by 1921

Question 29

What was the NEP?

Answer 29

Economic policy between 1921-1924
Short-term return to some capitalist policies in order to re-build the country’s economic security

Question 30

What was the result of abolishing grain requisitioning

Answer 30

Cereal production increased by 23%

Question 31

What were nepmen?

Answer 31

Merchants who travelled between towns selling wares