Power Struggle Following Lenin’s Death Flashcards
What are the 6 main outlines of the effects of Bolshevik consolidation of power?
1) Soviet people exhausted
2) Changing Communist Party
* Soviet dictatorship entrenched: Civil War, War Communism, Brest Litovsk
3) Shift away from pure ideology to pragmatism (changing context in which the Bolsheviks are ruling in)
* More militaristic in approaching policies
* One-party system = dictatorship of the Bolsheviks Party not of the proletariat
* Maintained control through violence = Centralisation of power
4) Economic uncertainty and debate
5) Creation of the USSR
6) Diplomatic challenges
How did Civil War, War Communism and the NEP align with how these effected Russia?
- Civil war = elements of a dictatorship, propaganda, terror and repression (3) = soviet dictatorship entrenched (2)
- War communism = soviet dictatorship entrenched (2) = changing bureaucratic structures “bureaucratisation” (2)
- NEP = economic uncertainty and debate (4) = no political concessions = soviet dictatorship entrenched (2)
What does it mean when the Party was the government?
- Party was the government - highly centralised bureaucratic and hierarchical
- Nomenklatura = all party & government jobs appointed by the Party = loyalty not talent
- Stalin had power of patronage
When did the Bolsheviks conslidate their power?
1917 and 1924 (struggle to gain and maintin)
How were the Soviet people exhausted by the time Bolsheviks consolidated their rule?
- Approx 10 million died during Civil War from fighting, disease, famine, war & terror
- Emigres fled Russia (former ruling classes and intelligentsia draining Soviet republic of promising scientists, artists and intellectuals)
- Exhausted by mid 1920s
- Ongoing Tensions between People and Party
→ Bitterness among many parts of the population regarded the way the Party ruled the USSR
→ Grain requisitioning = permanently damaged SOVNARKOM’s relationship with the peasantry
→ Clear cultural divide between the Communist Party and rural population
How was the Soviet dictatorship entrenched?
Censorship? Propaganda? Decrees? Government organisations?
Not Secret police and Concentration camps thats another card.
- Treaty of Brest Litovsk = SRs left SOVNARKOM = Bolshevik dominated
- Soviets in regional areas which did not align with the Bolshevisk were shut down
- one -party system
- “Dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party” instead of proletariat
- Tightly control the media, public discussion and art
→ Censorship: Decree on the Press 1917 made any publication criticising SOVNARKOM or the Bolshevik Party illegal and it was ruthlessly enforced
→ Main Administration for Literacy and Publishing Affairs or GAVLIT: New government organisation in 1922 with broad powers to censor books, magazines, newspapers and other forms of media including radio - Propaganda continued to expand after taking power in 1917 promoting government programs and communist ideals
How were the use of secret police and concentration camps utilised to entrench Bolshevik rule?
- Maintain control over the majority of the population relying on political violence (Cheka, Rdd Army)
** Political repression important feature !!!!** - Brute force was now a central and permanent feature of their rule after the Civil War
- Created powerful institutions of coercion and terror including the Cheka, concentration camp prisons and Red Army
- Cheka attacked the alternative political parties and arrest many of their members for counter-revolutionary crimes
→ Find and eliminate anti-government and anti-communist activity
** Concentration Camps** targeted members of other political parties & former members of the elite (landowners and priests - New labour camps known as the Solovki which were resonate & inaccessible → prisoners forced to work and maintain camp
What happened to the peasant trust towards the Bolsheviks by the end of the civil war? What areas did the Bolsheviks govern? Was this effective?
- Failed to gain much popularity beyond the urban centre by the end of 1921
- Governed a largely rural population but most party members were in towns and cities
- End of Civil War, most peasants distrusted the government and Party
How was the Communist Party culture changing?
- Communists ruled in a period of intense war & conflict
= Desperate military struggle pushed the Party toward military structures and solutions - Claiming victory over internal ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and external capitalist powers gave the Communist Party a powerful ‘foundation myth’
- Civil war = rallying point for Party and supporters
→ New national myth of Soviet Union
→ Victory over tsarist generals, moderate socialists, and foreign powers = story that government began to promote
→ Seen as a struggle against counter-revolution from within Russia and against capitalist imperialism
→ Victory was symbol of triumph and Soviet power
What was ‘On Party Unity’? When was it implemented? Why and how was it used?
Changing Communist Party
- Party became intolerant of disagreements and alternative views within its own ranks
- Tenth Party Congress March 1921 when the Party accepted NEP Lenin forced decree ‘On Party Unity’ → banning factionalism
→ Used by Stalin to stifle debate about policy - Leading figures still promoted differing visions for the Party and Soviet
→ Smaller Party to prevent dilution by individuals who were not dedicated Communists VS grow in order to have wider read across USSR
→ Disagreements on role of USSR in the world
= Active role in supporting revolution in other parts of the world VS too dangerous whilst SOVNARKOM was weak
What were the overarching issues that surrounded economic uncertainty? What were the 2 political views of this?
- NEP !!!
- capitalism caused disagreement and tensions in party
- dissent and opposition silenced at the 10th Party Congress 1921 = on party unity
- LEFT LENIN : discontinue and do rapid/ immediate industrialistion, collectivisation of peasant farms to ensure surplus food to feed cities, taxing peasants
- ADV: industrialisation & socialism
- DIS: provoke retaliation from capitalist nations, incite opposition from pesantry, revolut & withdraw fro market
- RIGHT NIKOLAI BUKHARIN: continue
- ADV: allows for coexistance with neigbouring capitalist nations = more trades, successful is prpducuing industrual and agricultural produce , maintin peasantr support (smychka)
- DIS: slow and Russia will lag behind other nations, ideologically incompatible with aims of socialism (private property)
What were the 2 arguements leading up to the creation of the USSR?
- Russian empire = multiethnic state = policy for nationalities needed
1) let them defect, risk losing large portions of terriorry and population (nationalism, rebellion, conflict) - Lenin believed most groups who did defect woudl voluntairly become allies ith the Russian Republic after they realised it was superior to the capitlist empires of Western Europe
2) Forced to remain under Russian rule
- many Bolsheviks believed nations should not exist as they were a bourgeois construct
How did they solve the question of nationalities? Delcarations? What was the new body of organisation called?
- all people in the Russian former empire had a right to self-determination after weeks of SOVNARKOM power
- but at the same time prevented nationalities from delcaring independance (latvia, estonia, poland) would fail later
- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
What did the USSR represent? How did this impact Bolshevik rule?
- claimed to represent a new ‘union of peoples’ but in reality it ** further centralised authority** as it was dominated by Russian Republic and ruled from moscow and Communist Party
- SOVIET DICTATORSHIP ENTRENCHED
- CENTRALISATION OF POWER
- 1922 treaty signed 4 republics controlling distinct territories
What was the formal structure of the USSR?
- Union congress of Soviets where members of regional soviets came together to elect proportionally
- Memebrs of the union congress of Soviets elected a smaller TsIK (Central Executive Committee) with 2 chambers:
1) Council of union was elected proptionally to the number of citizens in republics (meaning Russian Republic more reps)
2) Council of Nationalities saw 5 members per republic - TsIK members elected a Councils Minister taking responibility for the USSR’s foreign policy, military, collective issues
