U3AOS2 INTERPRETATIONS

Question 1

Red Army Socialist Oath

Answer 1

“strictly and undeviatingly to observe revolutionary discipline and unquestionably fulfill all the orders of my commanders… may the strong hand of revolutionary law punish me”

Question 2

P

Trotsky’s importance as a military commander

Answer 2

“provided political linkage and political oversight, the lack of which was a major shortcoming of the White armies…also a spellbinding speaker, able to galvanise dispirited troops” (Pipes)

Question 3

Denikin

Diverse aims of the white armies

Answer 3

“If I raise the republican flag, I lose half my volunteers, and if I raise the monarchist flag, I lose the other half.”

Question 4

R

Impact of War Communism on the party structure

Answer 4

“There was a sense that the party was now a militarised fellowship of commissars” (Ryan)

Question 5

P

Abolition of money

Answer 5

“Their irresponsibility was nowhere more evident than in their obstinate attempts to introduce a money-less economy” (Pipes)

Question 6

F + P + L
Bolsheviks’ reason for War Communism

Answer 6

“War Communism was not just a response to the civil war; it was also a means of making civil war” (Figes)

W Comm policies demo ideological fanaticism rather than credible response to war/econ situation (Pares)

“We were forced to resort to War Communism by war and ruin” (Lih)

Question 7

K

Summary of War Communism

Answer 7

Bol had noble aims but lacked power to institute them effectively → “the gap between intentions and reality was extraordinarily wide… “ (Kenez)

Question 8

Kronstadt sailor delegate

Report of ‘labour armies’

Answer 8

“One might have thought that these were not factories but the forced labour prisons of tsarist times”
‘All of Soviet Russia has been turned into an All-Russian penal colony’
Bol = ‘worse than Nicholas’

Question 9

Trotsky

Reputation of the Kronstadt sailors

Answer 9

“the pride and glory of the Revolution… the reddest of red”

Question 10

Trotsky

Bolsheviks’ attitude towards governance

Answer 10

“What sort of diplomatic work will we be doing anyway? I shall order a few revolutionary decrees to the people, then shut up shop”

Question 11

R + L

Bolsheviks’ governance strategy

Answer 11

“the [Bolsheviks were the] only people in Russia who had a definite programme of action while the others had talked for eight months” (Reed)

Bol had been focussed on rev → gave little thought abt how new soc would be org (Lynch)

Question 12

S

Initial decrees

Answer 12

“They were designed to inspire, to excite and to instigate” (Service)

Question 13

Lynch

Reasons for Civil War

Answer 13

“The claim to absolute authority by the Bolsheviks made civil war unavoidable”

Question 14

P + L
Reasons for the Cheka

Answer 14

“a reversion to the autocratic practices of Tsarist Russia..” (Pipes)

“The Bolshevik leadership created an extreme situation” - only way out was to terrorise pop (Litvin)

Question 15

Lenin

Wine riots

Answer 15

“We shall destroy everything and on the ruins we shall build our temple!”

Question 16

Lenin

Justification for dissolving the CA

Answer 16

“bourgeoisie parliamentarianism is outdated” + “completely incompatible with the construction of socialism”

Question 17

Trotsky

Impact of the CA’s dissolution on Bolshevik strategy

Answer 17

“Lenin’s theoretical considerations went hand in hand with sharpshooters”

Question 18

F + S

Impact of CA dissolution on ordinary people

Answer 18

Workers = preoccupied w securing food/fuel for fam while peasants viewed CA as a “distant thing in the city” (Figes)

Ord ppl = more concerned w bringing changes to everyday life vs est pol instit – t/f CA = irrelevant (Steinburg)

Question 19

Lynch +

Impact of TBL on Lenin’s power/legacy

Answer 19

L’s importance = his insistence on unity during time of crisis by persuading patriots to sacrifice theory/ideology for Bol stability (Lynch)

“Lenin’s insistence that Sovnarkom accept the humiliating Treaty had paid off and his reputation as the Party’s wise and eminent leader grew” (Ryan)

Question 20

Lenin

Blame for TBL

Answer 20

“it is our pseudo-Lefts, Bukharin… and Co., who are guilty”

Question 21

Lenin

Aug 1918 Hanging Order

Answer 21

“people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: let’s choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks”

Question 22

L + P + S

Reasons for the Red Terror

Answer 22

“No regime placed in the Bolshevik predicament between 1917 and 1921 could have survived without resort to authoritarian measures” (Lynch)

“measure designed to nip in the bud any thoughts of resistance to the dictatorship” (Pipes)

“over-killing was better than running the risk of being overthrown” (Service)

Question 23

Volkogonov

Lenin’s role in the Red Terror

Answer 23

“Lenin himself was the patron saint of the Cheka”

Question 24

Dzerzhinsky

Reasons for the Red Terror

Answer 24

“We stand for organised terror… The Cheka is obliged to defend the revolution and conquer the enemy even if the sword does by chance sometimes fall on the heads of the innocent”

Question 25

Krylenko (Minister for Justice)

Reasons for the Red Terror

Answer 25

“Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more”

Question 26

Graffiti in Petrograd

Criticism of the Red Elite

Answer 26

“Down with Lenin and horsemeat! Give use the Tsar and pork!”

Question 27

Lenin

Justification for class-based ration system

Answer 27

“He who does not work, neither shall he eat”

Question 28

L

Impact of War Communism

Answer 28

“Instead of splitting the village, [the Kombedy] united it – in rage and fury against the Bolsheviks” (Lih)

Question 29

Peasant in letter to government

Grain requisitioning

Answer 29

“The land belongs to us but the bread belongs to you; the water belongs to us, but the fish to you; the forests are ours but the timber is yours”

Question 30

Lenin

Threat of the green armies

Answer 30

Peasant insurgents (Gr armies) = “far more dangerous than all the Denikins, Yudeniches and Kolchaks put together”

Question 31

Lenin

Impact of the Great Famine on state stability

Answer 31

“we are barely holding on”

Question 32

Tukachevsky (commander of R army)

Reasons for Bolsheviks continuing to expand into Poland

Answer 32

“We shall bring happiness and peace to the toilers of humanity on our bayonets”

Question 33

T

Impact of the Treaty of Riga/Soviet-Polish War on Bolshevik strategy + goals

Answer 33

“Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution” (Taylor)

Question 34

Kronstadt newspaper - What are we fighting for?

Answer 34

“The power of the police and gendarme monarchy passed into the hands of the Communist usurpers”

Question 35

Lenin

Reasons for suppressing the Kronstadt Revolt

Answer 35

“teach the public a lesson, so that for decades to come they will not dare to even contemplate resistance’.

Question 36

F + K

Significance of the Kronstadt Revolt

Answer 36

‘a symbolic parting of the ways between the working class and the Bolshevik Party’ (Fitzpatrick)

“Defeating K sailors Bol had “in effect repudiated some of the utopian, but nonetheless emotionally powerful, goals of the revolution’ (Kenez)

Question 37

L

Significance of On Party Unity

Answer 37

On Party Unity = ‘logical climax of the policy…of suppressing all opposition to Bolshevik rule’. (Lynch)

Question 38

Lenin

Justification for deporting intellectuals

Answer 38

Intell = “corruptors of youth students”

Question 39

E

Impact of peasant rebellions on Bolshevik power

Answer 39

“Bolshevik authority had ceased to exist” in Tambov (Engelstein)

Question 40

S

Left party members view of NEP

Answer 40

“malignant cancer” (Service)

Question 41

F + C + A + L

Continuity and change for ordinary Russian citizens

Answer 41

“the new autocracy had been imposed on Russia which in many ways resembled the old” (Figes)

“by the fundamental character of the social reorganisation which it brought about, the Russian Revolution is the greatest event of its kind in history” (Chamberlin)

“The enemy of the ppl was the regime… The Revolution was a lie” (Amis)

“Lenin ruled in the tradition of an absolutist Tsar” (Lynch)