Lenin to Stalin, 1917-28 Flashcards
How were the Bolsheviks divided in 1918?
in January, 63 leading Bolsheviks met:
32 favoured a revolutionary war, 16 favoured Trotsky’s no war but no peace on German terms, 15 favoured Lenin’s peace at any price
What did Trotsky do in December 1917?
Peace settlement with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. He eventually withdrew due to harsh terms, claiming there would be ‘neither war nor peace’
When was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed and why?
3 March, as the Germans had advanced 150 miles in five days and Lenin was worried they would seize Petrograd and force the Communists out
What had Lenin claimed about civil war prior to the revolution?
Revolution led ‘inevitably’ into civil war
Why did the peasants generally support the reds
As a White victory meant restoration of ruling class - and landlords which peasants despised
What did the White army consist of and why was it poorly contructed
Former Tsarist officers, SRs and liberals. They were undivided and often at dispute with each other
Who was Nestor Makhno
A Green guerilla leader in the Ukraine, who fought against Reds, Whites and Germans, but ultimately became a Bolshevik ally
When did the civil war break out and end
May 1918 - November 1920
How did the civil war end in 1920
Wrangel, the last surviving White general, was defeated in the Crimea in November, ending the civil war
3 reasons why the Reds won the civil war
Bolsheviks held the central cities, so conscription outnumbered the Whites
Trotsky led the red army with great charisma
General support from the peasants as they stood for the revolution and Lenin had legitimised their land
3 reasons why the Whites lost the civil war
Formed of different groups who could not decide what their objective was
Poor leadership, with indiscipline and corruption within
Whites did not use propaganda to the extent of the Bolsheviks
What was war communism and what were 3 factors of it
In spring 1918, the economy was deteriorating, so the approach of war communism included:
Grain requisitioning from the peasants - in May 1918 a Food-Supplies Dictatorship was formed
June 1918’s decree of nationalisation brought industry under state control
All private trade was officially banned (black market developed)
1 point about inflation in 1918
On average, urban workers spent 1/3 of their income on food
Did Bolsheviks support war communism
Yes, they were not unhappy to see the market system collapse and had always wanted centralised control to develop socialism
What was the cheka’s red terror
An intensification of repression, triggered by Lenin’s assassination attempt 30 August 1918
How many total employees did the cheka have by 1921 against 1918
June 1918 had 1000 members, by 1921 it had 143,000 employees
When and where was the tsar and his family executed
17 July 1918 in Ekaterinburg
1918-20 how many official executions had the cheka made, and what did estimate figures put this number at
Nearly 13,000 but estimates claim 500,000
2 points about peasant hostility to grain requisitioning
Poor harvest 1920 left the peasants lacking grain, thus the peasants were hostile to the requisitioning:
Tambov uprising August 1920 - June 1921 led by Alexander Antonov
2 points about the cities 1920-21
22 Jan 1921, bread ration was cut by one-third in Moscow and Petrograd
Cheka had do break up demonstrations as troops refused to fire on crowds
2 points why workers were hostile to bolsheviks 1921
Food shortages - Jan saw bread rations cut by a third
Militarised factories - ‘worse than a tsarist prison camp’
2 points about Kronstadt uprising
March 1921, the Kronstadt sailors who had been ‘the pride and glory’ pf the revolution began assisting strikers
Marshal Tukhachevsky, with 50,000 assault troops, attacked their base and killed 10,000. Cheka executed a further 2,5000 sailors in the following weeks
3 points regarding the NEP
The New Economic Policy was brought by Lenin as economic liberalisation was necessary
In 1921, grain requisitioning was abolished ad replaced by a ‘tax in kind’, as well as ban on private trade
Communists prepared to support as long as it was ‘temporary’
When was the 10th Party Congress and what did its ‘ban on factions’ entail
March 1921, the ‘ban on factions’ made opposition factions to Lenin within the Party liable to exclusion
2 points of the chistka
The cleansing, commenced May 1918 sought to expel the insufficiently communist within the party
In 1921, about 220,000 of the 730,000 members left or were purged
2 consequences of the NEP
Strikes lost momentum with revival of free trade and independent industry
NEP was accompanied by repression - in 1921, 5,000 Mensheviks were arrested and 11 SRs executed for terrorism
What was the cheka renamed to and when
The GPU (Main Political Administration) in 1922
2 points of how the communist dictatorship developed
1919, the Politburo was formed - inner ruling group of around 7 people - which preceded over the Sovnarkom as the key decision making body
From 1919, the central committee began to appoint members to the soviets, replacing elections
Why did Lenin and Stalin clash throughout Lenin’s final years
Lenin accused Stalin of Great Russian chauvinism and bullying the Georgian Communist Party
He was worried about Stalin’s increasing power
When did Lenin die
January 1924
3 impacts of the NEP
By 1922, food circulated the market and trade prospered
Scissor crisis arose due to imbalance of falling grain prices and increasingly priced industrial goods (over by April 1923)
Appearance of private traders - Nepmen - who gained wealth by selling produce in urban markets and tools to the peasants - by 1923, they handled up to 3/4 of retail trade
2 points regarding the NEP and the peasants
From 1923, peasants were not producing required quantity of grain to export - prime NEP years failed to exceed 3 mill tons of grain to export, against 12 in 1913 (deteriorated foreign trade)
Agriculture remained backward and peasants withheld their grain, hoping prices would rise
2 points regarding the NEP and the workers
First 2 years of NEP saw unemployment rise and wages fall as employers sought profit - by 1927 14% of employable population were unemployed (higher than before the war)
‘New Exploitation of the Proletariat’, it was called
2 points regarding the grain crisis
In 1927, grain procurement was 3/4 of 1926 levels, so Stalin endeavoured on a requisitioning campaign in 1928
‘Urals-Siberian’ method, backed by emergency measured, extracted grain from peasants and arrested those withholding from the state
