Russian - AOS 2 Flashcards
Red Terror perspective
“Machine guns became for them the principle instrument of political persuasion.” (Pipes)
Polish Soviet War
February 1919 - March 1921
War Communism perspective
“Instead of raising productivity to unprecedented heights, war communism had reduced it to levels that threatened Russia’s very survival.” (Pipes)
Death of Lenin
24 January 1924
Scissor Crisis
Agricultural production rapidly increased, leading to a drop in prices
Shortages of industrial and manufactured goods caused their prices to rise
Thus, disparity in prices
Farmers impacted as income drops, causing subsistence farming to increase
Constituent Assembly elections
November 1917
- Bolsheviks = 23%
- SRs = 42%
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
3 March 1918
Gave up large chunks of Russian territory to Germany, namely Ukraine, along with granting financial compensation
Examples of Bolshevik decrees
- Decree on Land
- Decree on Private Ownership
- Decree on Religion
Civil War
1918 - 1921
Tsar Nicholas II death
July 1918, in Yekaterinburg
Red Army
January 1918
5 million men by 1920
CHEKA executions
140,000 during the Civil War
140,000 during peasant revolts
Okhrana executions
14,000 in 50 years
War Communism
- Date
- Policies
June 1918 - March 1921
- Forced grain requisitioning
- Conscription into Red Army and industry
- “Communist Sundays”
War Communism effects
- 9.5 million deaths from famine and disease
- Industry rates 15% of pre-war rates
- Cannibalism and bribery
Kronstadt food causes
- January 1921 - bread rations cut by 1/3
- Most privileged workers received only 1000 calories per day
Kronstadt Uprising
7-17 March 1921
- 15,000 sailors and soldiers from Kronstadt revolt against the Bolsheviks
- Revolutionary Committee demands “soviets without Bolsheviks,” an end to War Communism, freedom of speech & press, allow other political parties
- 2,000 rebels killed
- 10,000 Red Army soldiers killed
Kronstadt quote
“Reddest of the Red.” (Trotsky)
Kronstadt perspective
“Symbolic parting of the ways between the working class and the Bolshevik party.” (Fitzpatrick)
NEP
1921-1928
- Paid peasants for grain, abolished grain requisitioning, re-introduced wages for workers
NEP effects
- Grain harvests double between 1921 and 1925
- Wages of workers increased by 150%
NEP perspective
the “NEP was nothing short of treason.” (Malone)
Red Terror HP
“When threatened by danger, the bolsheviks resorted to… mass terror against their own people.” (Volkogonov)
NEP HP
“Such a gamble was essential for the regime to survive.” (Service)
