Russia Topic 4 and 5 Flashcards
What were the 1917 Decrees:
Land, Peace, Worker’s Rights, Unemployment, Nationalities
Decree on Land
Land was taken from the landowners and given to the peasants
Church land was nationalised Church power decreased
Decree on Peace
All countries that were involved in war should find peace
Armistice for Russian troops
Declared they would introduce peace with other countries
Decree on Workers’ Rights (Nov 11)
Decree on Unemployment
Unemployment insurance for those who are unable to work.
Decree on Work
8 hour days
Decree on Workers’ Control
Workers’ committees now were able to run their own factories
Decree ofNationalities
Everyone in the old Russian empire were given permission to have their own governments
However, these governments remained under Bolshevik control.
Allowed elections to take place
Addressed the lack of legitimacy
Allowed the constituent assembly to meet
Less censorship
Why did Lenin close the Constituent Assembly?
Wanted sole power for the Bolsheviks
Lost heavily in the elections: The Bolsheviks did not do too well, they only won 24% of votes. SR’s gained 52%
Reasons:
The Bolsheviks were too radical
Their ideas were quite bizarre
The Social Revolutionaries were much more popular in the countryside where they had long campaigned for land reform
How did Lenin close the Constituent Assembly?
Bolsheviks walked out of the Constituent Assembly meeting in protest after they rejected the 1917 Decrees.
Closed the constituent assembly after a day as Lenin viewed it as a threat to the revolution and to the Soviets. Used the Red Guards to prevent the opening of the CA.
Banned opposition parties and leaders of these parties were arrested as enemies of the people
The Cheka
- replaced the old Tsarist secret police
What was the treaty of Brest-Litovsk?
It was a peace treaty between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers that ended in Russia’s participation in World War I
Signed March 3, 1918 in Brest-Litovsk (which was then an area in Poland; now is a part of Belarus)
Because the Germans knew the Russians were desperate to leave the war, they set extremely harsh terms for peace between the two countries
Russia had to give up a huge area of its former western territories, which included Ukraine and the Baltic provinces
Russia also lost Georgia
Russia had to pay the Germans 300 million gold roubles
Consequences of the Treaty of B-L 5
Throughout Russia, it was seen as a shameful way to achieve peace
Half of the Tsar Nicholas’s empire had been lost, along with much of its most important resources
Russia was a far weaker country than it had been before the Bolshevik Revolution
The loss of some of Russia’s most productive farmland means the food shortage situation was worsened
By June 1918, 1 million people had left Petrograd and the number of people working there had shrunk by 60%
people who opposed the bolsheviks (4)
There were many groups within Russia who opposed the Bolsheviks:
Monarchists who wanted to put the Tsar back into power
Upper-class and middle-class people who were in danger of losing everything under the Bolsheviks They would lose a lot under the Bolsheviks ideological plan (Marxism)
Supporters of the Constituent Assembly who hated the way the Bolsheviks had turned Russia into a dictatorship. By shutting down the constitution the Bolsheviks made many enemies.
Other nationalities within the old Russia empire who wanted independence from Russia control. The poles are a particularly good example of a nationality who wanted to fight for their freedom as they knew that the Bolsheviks wouldn’t give this. Even though they may have agreed with their policies national independence was more important.
who were the red and whites
There were any different groups fighting in the Civil War, but the two main sides were known as the Reds and the Whites. The Reds were the Bolsheviks and the Whites were a collection of different groups who wanted to get rid of the
bolshevik strengths in civil war (5)
Bolshevik Strength
Geological factors Leadership Unity and organisation Support Propaganda
white strengths (3)
They attacked from all fronts (they had the Bolsheviks surrounded:
In Siberia (army led by admiral Kolchak)
From Estonia (army led by general Yudenich)
In the south (general Denikin led a force of ex-army officers and liberals)
In samara, south-central Russia (the people’s army of komuch)
This made it harder for the reds to defend against them as they were attacking on all fronts.
They were led by some of Russia’s most experienced military generals and admirals
Significant foreign support
Britain, France, USA
bolshevik strength (trotsky, ruthless, control)
A very organised and disciplined group
They made different alliances at different times so they never had to fight all their opponents at once.
They controlled most of Russia’s industries (for weapons) and railways.
Ruthless attitude
The red terror: any real or imagined opposition to the Bolsheviks faced arrest, torture and execution.
Led by Trotsky who devoted himself entirely to winning the war
He boosted army morale
His leadership was centered on organisation, motivation and discipline.
bolsheik strength discipline
Discipline was extremely harsh
Trotsky needed a traditional army with trained soldiers obeying orders from experienced officers so he recruited officers from the tsar’s army who each was supervised by a Bolshevik political commissar
The officers were also told that their families would suffer if they betrayed the Red Army
Political commissars often executed any soldier who did not attack when ordered do
The strictness meant they were very loyal
bolshevik strength conscription
Conscription meant the army grew massively
It had over 3 million men by 1920 and over 5 million by 1921
The size was vital for success because the Reds were being attacked from all different directions
In 1920, the Red Army was fighting on 16 different fronts
bolshevik strength propaganda
Propaganda was an important reason for the red’s success. While the white leaders had no time for propaganda, the reds used extremely striking images and powerful slogans to convince people to support them.
E.g according to red propaganda
the whites would take away peasant land.
the foreigners helping the whites were Russia’s enemies, who wanted to invade Russia.
The constant message was that the Bolsheviks would look after ordinary Russians.
bolshevik strength geographical
The Reds had the advantage of a central location and control of central Russia
Central Russia also contained most of Russia’s population- who could be conscripted into the red army.
Allowed easy access to Russia’s industries and railway network
Made transportation of supplies and people easier
This meant shorter distances to supply their armies.
Easier to recruit soldiers
Had to travel short distances
bolshevik strength war communism
War communism- introduced by Lenin to tackle the economic crisis.
bolshevik weaknesses (4)
They carried out ‘terror’ on the peasants (high taxes) which didn’t make them very popular
Didn’t have foreign support
This lack of international support could have been quite decisive (they had no funding or weapons)
They were extremely harsh in how they treated peasants and in discipline
This didn’t make them very popular.
They had to defend on lots of different fronts
Therefore, their troops had to be widely distributed and so did their supplies.
white weakness ( lack of unity)
they were made up of all the different groups fighting to defeat the reds. They often had very little in common with each other apart from their opposition to the Bolsheviks. For example they included the socialist revolutionaries who wanted to bring back the constituent assembly,ultra-conservatives who wanted the Tsar to return to the throne and army officers who were angered by the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Sometimes these groups fought each other as well as the Bolsheviks.
There was no leader. This meant that they were not well organised, which made them easier to fight against
The reason they didn’t have a leader was because they were all fighting for different things (above).
Poor logistics
white weakness peasants
The reputation of the whites was particularly bad amongst the peasants, even though both the reds and whites both treated local peasant populations very badly
This was because many of the whites wanted to reverse the Bolshevik Revolution, which included getting their land back from the peasants.
As a result they received very little support from the peasants, and had to use brutal force to get the resources they needed to fight the reds, which made the peasants dislike them even more.
white weakness (size, geographical)
The white armies were much smaller than the Red Army
Difficult to persuade peasants to leave their regions so hard to find new recruits
The whites had a maximum of 250,000 soldiers
The White forces were all based on the outer areas of Russia, attacking towards the centre
Russia’s industries were in the centre so being outside the centre made it much harder for the White armies to get supplies and new recruits
It also meant it was hard to communicate and coordinate
It also meant that supplying the white armies were very difficult as they were very spread out.
They didn’t have a large population to conscript soldiers from. Many troops would only fight for their area and no other.
red terror
The Red Terror:
The Bolsheviks uses the secret police, the Cheka, to kill nearly 300,000 people, including the Tsar and his family, between 1918 and 1920 to make people too frightened and of Cheka to oppose the Bolsheviks
greens
The Greens:
Group of peasants who joined together to fight for control for their local areas
70 000
what was war communism
War Communism
In June 1918, Lenin introduced a system called War Communism.
This basically meant that the state had total control over the economy.
causes of war communism (3)
In order to win the Civil War
Lenin introduced this so that the Russian economy could meet the needs of the military and industrial workers.
The red army had to be supplied with food, clothing and weapons if the Bolsheviks were going to win the civil war. The Bolsheviks therefore needed factories and farms to be run more efficiently, and needed the workers to work harder.
When the Bolsheviks took control of Russia in 1917 the economy was in a very bad condition
Industries were producing only 60% of what they had produced in 1913
The transport network was disrupted and raw materials were not getting to the factories
The banks were not lending money to factories after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Bolsheviks has also lost 40% of the industrial areas of the old Russian empire following the treaty of Brest-litovsk.
Workforce numbers were also going down: food shortages meant workers were leaving the starving cities and going back to their family villages to find food.
The ideological reasons:
this system was close to how the Bolsheviks believed a communist country should be run: with the state in control of all production and without individuals making any profit from buying and selling.
features of war communism 5
Peasants were not allowed to sell their crops. The state requisitioned (took forcefully) the crops and left the peasants a small amount for their own needs.
Food rationing began in cities, with soldiers and workers getting more food than others.
A new central planning organisation called the supreme economic council (Vesenkha) was introduced in December 1917. It decided what the economy needed and set targets. Workers’ Soviets no longer made the decisions for their factories. It decided what each nationalise factory would produce and organised the supply of raw materials.
Factories with more than 10 workers were nationalised and given production targets by the government.
Workers were put under government control. Strikes were banned in order to guarantee production targets.
Everyone old enough to work was forced to work- a policy called labour conscription. Workers could be moved from one city to another to work. From 1920 anyone of working age (between 16 and 50) could be made to work for the state.
Private enterprise was banned completely. Markets were illegal and no-one could sell anything.
the effect of war communism 7
The impact of the peasant ban on selling crops was that they often ended up hiding the grain they grew, even though anyone suspected of hoarding grain would be shot.
Between 1918 and 1920 half of Moscow’s population went back to the countryside as they didn’t have enough food and it was so hard to find
In Petrograd, almost ¾ of the city’s population. disappeared in the same way.
When you remove the possibility of private enterprise you also remove incentive. However hard you work the government will still give you the same amount of food.
Therefore many peasant stopped working so hard and less food was produced.
By 1920 farm production had fallen to 37% of what it had been in 1913, before the war and revolutions
The workers didn’t have enough food as the government didn’t have enough to supply them. There was a colossal loss of output.
Which caused famine
There were hundreds of thousands of deaths due to the famine.
This boiled over into widespread unrest.
Lenin blamed this on the Kulaks. The kulaks were slightly richer peasant.
Bolsheviks propaganda started to say that the reason the peasant had no food was because the kulaks hoarded it, Lenin turned the peasant population in the countryside against each other.
The Kronstadt naval mutiny
what was the kronstadt naval mutiny
The Kronstadt Naval mutiny
The sailors of the Kronstadt naval base had been strong supporters of the revolution in Russia. It was a very important naval base as it guarded Petrograd. During the February revolution in 1917, Kronstadt sailors rioted and murdered many of their tsarist officers. They set up a Kronstadt Soviet, took part in the July days and joined the red guard in defending Petrograd from Kornilov’s in August, and then again in seizing power from the provisional government in October. In January 1918, Kronstadt sailors were among the troops used by Lenin to shut down the constituent assembly. Despite being heroes of the revolution in 1917, on 28 February 1921, there was a mutiny of the Kronstadt sailors on the battleship Petropavlovsk. More than 15000 sailors mutinied.
3 causes of the kronstadt mutiny
Causes:
There was growing opposition to the difficulties created by War Communism amongst workers
There was increasing anger about the way that Bolshevik bureaucrats had more food and advantages than the workers
The sailors were furious that the Bolsheviks were betraying their socialist revolution by imprisoning and executing people without trial
6 effects of the kronstadt mutiny
Effects:
Lenin ordered the Bolsheviks to use violence to put down the mutiny
Trotsky organised a huge force of 50,000 Red Army soldiers to storm the naval base
There was fierce fighting until 17 March when the government regained control of the base
Around 8000 soldiers escaped to Finland
Prisoners were handed over to the Cheka
Around 500 sailors were executed
significance of the kronstadt naval mutiny
Significance:
The growth in opposition was worrying, especially when it involved workers, soldiers and sailors who should have been Bolshevik supporters
Lenin recognised that War Communism was putting his control over the control at risk
So, he decided to abandon War Communism and turned to a new policy that would back elements of capitalism
6 causes of the NEP
Due to the increased unrest and opposition, Lenin abandoned war communism and switched to NEP.
There was mass starvation and famines.
An estimated 5 million died from starvation and disease.
At the same time, Bolsheviks also faced a political crisis.
Once the civil war was won, the Bolsheviks could no longer continue to blame the whites for causing all the terrible suffering.
In the cities, workers began protesting again, against the harsh discipline in the factories
By the end of 1920 ¾ of Petrograd factories were on strike.
In the countryside, peasant unrest against food requisitioning turned whole regions, for example, the Tambov region, into areas that the bolsheviks could not enter.
features of the NEP 5
It allowed the peasants to sell things again but charged them a 10% tax. This gave them incentive again as the more they made the more they got.
Ended grain requisitions
Allowed companies with less than 20 workers to be privately owned
Foreign experts brought in to improve how factories were run
Any Russians could open a shop and sell or hire goods for a profit ‘Nepmen’
impacts of the NEP
Agricultural production increased rapidly
Peasants grew a lot more food and were earning more money
As production increases, so did supplies of food
Allowed people to trade again
New currently, the chervonets, was introduced in 1922
Rationing was abolished
Industrial growth also increased, especially for smaller businesses that were now privately owned and run for profit
There was higher demand in the countryside for simple manufactured products like clothes and shoes
Britain, for example, made trade deals with the Soviet Union, which helped boost the latter’s finances
achievements of lenin
Lenin died in 1924, at the age of 53. One-Party rule Forced revolution War Communism april thesis october rev muscovite bolshevik leninism war communism NEP treaty of brest litovks
achievement of lenin - msucovite bolshevik lenins
Muscovite Bolshevik Leninism:
Lenin rethought Marxism so it fitted Russia’s situation
Before Lenin, Russian Marxists thought socialism was years in the future. Arguably, Lenin’s most significant contribution to the Bolshevik claim to power is his insistence that the revolution occur immediately.
Focused on the idea of forcing a revolution to take place: he was absolutely dedicated to the idea that he should lead the Bolsheviks into power and he could not wait for the process to occur naturally.
Gained significant support for the party from the disillusioned, who wanted immediate and radical change from the dire situation after the abdication of the Tsar. This led the Bolsheviks gaining a majority, chaired by Trotsky, in the Petrograd Soviet.
achievement of lenin - april thesis
The April theses
These changed the aims of the Bolshevik party
Clear but simple aims gave the Bolsheviks much more support in times of desperate need. “Peace, Bread, Land” “All Power to the Soviets”
achievement of lenin - october rev
The October revolution
Lenin masterminded the revolution
Without Lenin, the Bolsheviks would not have seized power
achievement of lenin - single party and top down
Single Party Rule/ Top down:
Single party rule
Lenin refused to share any political power with other parties. In the months leading up to the October Revolution, he created the Council of People’s Commissars or Sovnarkom. Through the closure of the Constituent Assembly Lenin eradicated any potential threats to his ability to carry out Bolshevik ideology.
Top-down revolution: enforcing of an ideology by a small party on the masses. Lenin’s ideological impetus was then translated into the political system.
Democratic centralism: The Soviet Union became a dictatorship.
Chairman (supreme leader) of the Politburo.
Politburo was self-selecting and it’s authority could at no point be challenged.
Ensured by the use of the CHEKA- killed approximately 300000 people during the Civil War
achievement of lenin - treaty of brest litovks,war communism, nep
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Lenin demanded peace with Germany at any price
The treaty helped the Bolsheviks hold onto power
War Communism
Although this was very unpopular, it enabled the Bolsheviks to win the Civil War
NEP
Lenin got the Party to agree to a retreat from communism
War Communism was so unpopular that the Bolsheviks could have been thrown out of power
importance of lenin ideologically in the party
Lenin’s dynamic leadership of the Bolshevik Party causes rapid increase in popularity
He led the party in its seizure of part in Russia in October 1917
He then went on to be the first head of the new Soviet state (Soviet Union) in 1922
His political theories set out the principles of how the Bolsheviks would rule.
He was at the centre of the red victory in the civil war, of the development of war communism and of the new economic policy.
It was not always easy for Lenin to persuade the Bolshevik party to support his ideas, but one way or another, by argument or by the threats of resignation, he convinced people to follow his leadership.
After his death, there was a leadership struggle to see who should replace him but there was never any doubt that whoever the new leader was, the Soviet Union would continue to be a communist country
This shows how much Lenin achieved
The ideological role that Lenin played was so important as he was convincing, a clear figure head and that is what was needed when the country was switching from capitalism to communism.
