The Bolshevik Consolidation of Power and the Civil War

Question 1

Explain what the 1917 Decrees were and their significance.

Answer 1

• The Decree on Peace demanded a ‘democratic peace’ for all warring peoples. Lenin called for a proletariat revolution in Europe. A rising of the workers in western Europe.
• The Decree on Land abolished private property and made legitimate the land that the peasants had taken from their landowner. This was a policy pinched from the Socialist Revolutionaries.

These decrees were important because it gained peasant support for the Bolsheviks and from the workers and soldiers who had wanted peace for a long time.

Question 2

What other legislation did the Bolsheviks introduce when they seized power?

Answer 2

• Civil marriage and divorce were introduced and made easily obtainable.
• Housing in cities were taken over by the state and allocated by the government based on need.
• Larger factories were nationalised.
• The rich were forced to work and had their properties seized.
• Titles were abolished
• The role of the Church in education was abolished and a literacy campaign was introduced.

Question 3

Outline the events of the closing of the Constituent Assembly and why it was closed.

Answer 3

• Bolsheviks got nine million votes, but the Social Revolutionaries had twenty-one million. This meant that the Social Revolutionaries had the majority (They had 58% of the vote)
• the Bolsheviks refused to have Viktor Chernov as the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly and left.
• the Assembly was dissolved by order of the Congress of Soviets.
• Lenin claimed that ‘to make the changeover to communist society, the workers must assume a period of dictatorship’ and that there must be total loyalty to the Bolshevik party, anybody who refused this was evidently against communism.

Question 4

Describe how the Bolsheviks consolidated their power.

Answer 4

• they made decrees which legitimised the peasants’ seizure of their landowners’ lands.
• they removed any possible opposition by closing the Constituent Assembly
• they signed a peace treaty which ended the war.
• they also started literacy campaign and removed the Church from education.
• they used their Secret Police, called the Cheka, as counter-revolutionaries had to be controlled. They shot about 6,300 in the first year of the Red Terror.
• they had the Royal Family executed so that opposition didn’t have a figurehead to rally behind.

Question 5

Explain why Lenin agreed to the Brest-Litovsk treaty.

Answer 5

• the effects of the war had already brought down the Tsar and the Provisional Government, it could also bring down the Sovnarkom and the Congress of Soviets.
• Lenin needed peace in order to win support from the workers and the peasants and to deal with enemies of his government and so consolidate Bolshevik rule.
• he needed to keep the support of the army.

Question 6

What were the results of the treaty?

Answer 6

• 62 million people ( one-sixth of the total population)
• 27% of its farm land, including some of the best
• 26% of railways
• 74% of iron ore and coal

Many Russians didn’t want Lenin to accept the harsh terms of the treaty, so when Trotsky signed the treaty opposition to the Bolsheviks increased and resulted in the Civil War.

i.e.

Russia lost the Baltics, Finland, Ukraine, Georgia, some of the Caucasus, Belarus and Poland. They also had to pay six billion marks in reparations to the Germans. The Treaty took Russia out of the war and was signed in March 1918.

Question 7

Why did Trotsky sign the treaty?

Answer 7

Lenin had gambled that a world revolution was about to break out elsewhere, including Germany, in which case the treaty wouldn’t last.

Question 8

Who opposed the Bolsheviks, or ‘Reds’ ?

Answer 8

• Social Revolutionaries who had been refused power in 1917
• Landlords whose lands had been taken from them
• factory owners whose factories had been nationalised
• supporters of the Tsar, including supporters of the Provisional Government
• national groups who wanted independence
• military leaders who had felt embarrassed by the treaty
• the Entente, including Japan and the Czech Legion.

(obviously this is over-simplified)

Question 9

Outline the key events of the Civil War.

Answer 9

• Admiral Kolchak invaded eastern Russia in the spring of 1919 and advanced as far as Kazan before Trotsky organised a counter-attack. He was eventually captured and executed.
• General Deniken advanced from Ukraine to within 300 kilometres of Moscow until Trotsky organised a counter-attack. Deniken resigned his command and his army disbanded.
• General Yudenitch attacked from the north in the summer of 1919. He threatened Petrograd, but by the end of the year he had been defeated.
• The Poles took advantage of the Civil War and launched a surprise invasion in 1920, capturing Kiev. They were drove back eventually to the outskirts of Warsaw and they agreed to a peace treaty.

Question 10

Why were the communists successful? i.e. their strengths and the Whites’ weaknesses.

Answer 10

• The Bolsheviks were popular and used propaganda effectively.
• The Reds were fighting for a cause and they were led by a talented single leader, who enforced discipline. They also had talented military leaders who had seen action in the First World War.
• They controlled the railways and main cities of Russia, which had industry within them.
• War Communism fed the army.
• The Whites weren’t united, didn’t trust each other, were associated with the Tsarist reign, mistreated occupied people, their commanders were most of the time disrespectful to their troops and drank alcohol and used drugs. They lost outside support in 1920, as the Entente withdrew from Russia. They were scattered around Russia and didn’t coordinate and couldn’t communicate.

Question 11

What were the three effects of the Civil War?

Answer 11

• Lenin’s government survived and gained support.
• Famine and industrial collapse.
• Tsar and his family were dead.