Social

Question 1

Land redistribution

Answer 1

• 26 Oct 1917: Decree on Land
• Peasants given right to seize land from gentry and redistribute
• Peasants had been doing this since Feb 1917 so it looked like Bols. were supporting peasants
• ‘Private ownership of land shall be abolished forever’

Question 2

The Red Terror

Answer 2

• 5 Sept 1918: Decree on Red Terror
• Pipes: The Red Terror was not a reluctant action, but purposeful to end opposition.
• Goal was to eliminate counter-revolution through fear.
• Executed Tsar to ensure the Bols. Did “not leave the Whites a live banner to rally around” (Sverdlov).
• Cheka shot, without trial, 8,389 suspected counter-revs in 1918-19
• 140,000 killed during the Civil War by the Cheka
• Had established a new understanding of Bols. rule

Question 3

1921 Famine

Answer 3

• Russia’s total crop yield in 1921 was half of that in 1913
• 1922: American Relief Admin soup kitchen feeding 10 million Russians each day
• Peasants were forced to eat ‘famine bread’ made of clay and grass
• Reports of cannibalism in Samara Province in 1921
• Famine caused 5-8 million deaths
• Turns countryside against bols. Even further

Question 4

The Kronstadt Revolt p.t. 1

Answer 4

• 1 March 1921
• Kronstadt sailors were part of the naval base in Kronstadt
• They had been “the heroes of the 1917 revolution” (Corin and Fiehn)
  “reddest of the red” (Trotsky)
• Thousands march to Anchor Square and make demands in response to economic/social issues
• Believed Tsarist autocracy had been replaced with Communist commissarocracy
• Demands included new soviet elections, freedom of speech and press, end to grain requisitioning and end to military style working conditions

Question 5

The Kronstadt Revolt p.t. 2

Answer 5

• 7 March 1921: Trotsky orders 50,000 soldiers to attack 16,000 Kronstadt rebels
• 17 March 1921: Kronstadt Naval base falls to Red Army
• 5000 soldiers killed, 2329 executed, 6459 sent to prison camps
• Led to NEP
• Demonstrated Communists would respond to challenge with violent oppression
• A symbolic revolt

Question 6

The Cheka

Answer 6

• 7 Dec 1917
• Response to civil unrest.
  Publication of lists of ‘enemies of the people’, confiscation of ration cards
• Regime was challenged, Cheka was expanded, and new powers granted (1918: arrest, imprisonment, execution)
• Feb 21 18: Decree of The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!
• “Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators and German spies, are to be summarily shot.”
• Triggered by assassination attempts on Lenin, threat of German invasion, pol. tension.