Lenin to Stalin, 1917-28

Question 1

How were the Bolsheviks divided in 1918?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

What did Trotsky do in December 1917?

Answer 2

Peace settlement with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. He eventually withdrew due to harsh terms, claiming there would be ‘neither war nor peace’

Question 3

When was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed and why?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What had Lenin claimed about civil war prior to the revolution?

Answer 4

Revolution led ‘inevitably’ into civil war

Question 5

Why did the peasants generally support the reds

Answer 5

As a White victory meant restoration of ruling class - and landlords which peasants despised

Question 6

What did the White army consist of and why was it poorly contructed

Answer 6

Former Tsarist officers, SRs and liberals. They were undivided and often at dispute with each other

Question 7

Who was Nestor Makhno

Answer 7

A Green guerilla leader in the Ukraine, who fought against Reds, Whites and Germans, but ultimately became a Bolshevik ally

Question 8

When did the civil war break out and end

Answer 8

May 1918 - November 1920

Question 9

How did the civil war end in 1920

Answer 9

Wrangel, the last surviving White general, was defeated in the Crimea in November, ending the civil war

Question 10

3 reasons why the Reds won the civil war

Answer 10

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

Question 11

3 reasons why the Whites lost the civil war

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What was war communism and what were 3 factors of it

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

1 point about inflation in 1918

Answer 13

On average, urban workers spent 1/3 of their income on food

Question 14

Did Bolsheviks support war communism

Answer 14

Yes, they were not unhappy to see the market system collapse and had always wanted centralised control to develop socialism

Question 15

What was the cheka’s red terror

Answer 15

An intensification of repression, triggered by Lenin’s assassination attempt 30 August 1918

Question 16

How many total employees did the cheka have by 1921 against 1918

Answer 16

June 1918 had 1000 members, by 1921 it had 143,000 employees

Question 17

When and where was the tsar and his family executed

Answer 17

17 July 1918 in Ekaterinburg

Question 18

1918-20 how many official executions had the cheka made, and what did estimate figures put this number at

Answer 18

Nearly 13,000 but estimates claim 500,000

Question 19

2 points about peasant hostility to grain requisitioning

Answer 19

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

Question 20

2 points about the cities 1920-21

Answer 20

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

Question 21

2 points why workers were hostile to bolsheviks 1921

Answer 21

Food shortages - Jan saw bread rations cut by a third

Militarised factories - ‘worse than a tsarist prison camp’

Question 22

2 points about Kronstadt uprising

Answer 22

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

Question 23

3 points regarding the NEP

Answer 23

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’

Question 24

When was the 10th Party Congress and what did its ‘ban on factions’ entail

Answer 24

March 1921, the ‘ban on factions’ made opposition factions to Lenin within the Party liable to exclusion

Question 25

2 points of the chistka

Answer 25

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

Question 26

2 consequences of the NEP

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What was the cheka renamed to and when

Answer 27

The GPU (Main Political Administration) in 1922

Question 28

2 points of how the communist dictatorship developed

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Why did Lenin and Stalin clash throughout Lenin’s final years

Answer 29

Lenin accused Stalin of Great Russian chauvinism and bullying the Georgian Communist Party
He was worried about Stalin’s increasing power

Question 30

When did Lenin die

Answer 30

January 1924

Question 31

3 impacts of the NEP

Answer 31

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

Question 32

2 points regarding the NEP and the peasants

Answer 32

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

Question 33

2 points regarding the NEP and the workers

Answer 33

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

Question 34

2 points regarding the grain crisis

Answer 34

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