Unit 4 Out of war peace: the birth pangs of Soviet modernity Flashcards
Out of War and peace: the birth pangs of Soviet modernity
1917 - 1922 The Russian Revolution, the atheist Marxist-Lennist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
Mazower 3 political systems, 1) liberal democracy, fascism and communism, Red Army (as per Mazower) ws responsible for fascism’s defeat?) and it was the USSR (as per Mazower) that dominated (was the most powerful European state) the binary Europe that emerged until collapse in 1989-91
USSR Established 1922 until 1928 when old doctrine and ideological compromises are renounced and Stalinism begins
4.1 Revolution or revolutions?
1917, 2 revolutions, one in February and the other in October
Orlando Figes (A People’s Tragedy 1996) starts revolution from famine of 1891 to Lenin’s death in 1924, whilst Sheila Fitzpatrick (2008) dates it from February 1917 - Stalinist pages of 1937-38, Block stars it as a process commencing before and after 1917
4.2 Why did it happen?
First World War - ‘the major catalyst of the upheaval’ though historians disagree
Soviet historians say it was the inevitable result of class conflict, the gross social and economic inequalities of the tsarist social system, the sheer size of the country and the distribution of resources problem, rampant inflation, acute bread shortages on Petrograd 1917, but also rising literacy an thought and behaviour of last Tsar and Tsarina
Some Western historians see Bolshevik an aberration from autocracy to liberal democracy due to WWI stresses
There had been a revolution in 1905 after defeat by Japan that resulted (theoretically) in the limitation of autocratic powers and created an elected Duma and free press
4.2 Why did it happen? 2
Initially, war popular from a pan-Slavist perspective though Tannenberg showed weaknesses in artillery. communications, food shortages and technology
The Rasputin (degenerate) Tsarina Alexandra (German family) problem leads to civil and military (Petrograd) and naval (Kronstadt) unrest (reserves languishing in garrisons)
Deep roots to old order’s problems, deeply relationship to Europe, Russian Church anti western. Tsars fear western ideologies but like its technologies. However last two Tsars the most reactionary and autocratic since 1613 “God’ has placed me here
4.2 Why did it happen? 3
After 1905 the emergence of a middle class that was political orientated - formation of the Constitutional Democratic Party formed, members called ‘Kadets’
The thousands of peasants now now (forced by poverty) living in the great industrial cities in squalid, overcrowded dormitories (industrial baracks) and apartments, disaffected, alienated subjects (as well as the soldiers and sailors) would provide the muscle for the coming revolution
Another cause, the ‘fanaticism of the radical Russian intelligentsia’ (Fifes 1996), self-appointed leaders of the oppressed hell-bent on the old order’s subversion - 1870’s revolutionary populism, the populists, ‘narodniki’ to lead the people to ‘obshcchina’ socialism based on the peasant commune. Assassination of Alexander II 1881
4.2 Why did it happen? 4
Anarchism - proponents rejected the centralised state control, associated with Marxism, proponents include Mikhail Bakunin (opposed Marx) and Prince Pyotr Kropotkin.
Two main parties want Tsar out - 1) The Socialist Revolutionaries (SR’s) espoused the collectivist, peasant village scenario, 2) The Marxist Socialist Democrats (SD’s) supported by urban workers.
SD’s split into two main disputing factions a) The Mensheviks (Russian minority - pro a capitalist economy until socialism emerged), b) The Bolsheviks (the majority wing, wanted professional revolutionaries’ vanguard, a peasant industrial worker synthesis based on Russian populism, German Marxism and ‘the emerging and unstoppable International revolutionary movement?) led by Ulyanov who took the name Lenin
4.3 The year of revolutions
The bolsheviks were better organised had better planning and of course had German assistance, though at one time all was in the balance and he was branded a German spy and went onto hiding in Finland returning on October when the Bolsheviks had at last dominated the Petrograd Soviet
New regime’s Decree of Peace 26th October 1917 with the Central Powers, done to beak with the Entente and because Russia was in chaos - Treaty of Brest-Litvsk March 1918, cedes many Baltic states and Finland to Germany, though Germany would surrender just months later
4.4 Civil War and More
Early 1922: ‘the Bolsheviks desperate struggle to survive during the Civil War shaped the Soviet system of government and dictated its future course’ Lincoln 1989
Bolsheviks attack upper class and ban rival left co-revolutioneries
Bolsheviks toy with alliances e.g. with British, but are duplicitous with Central Power dealings, Allies worried that a White Russia might ally with the Central Powers, Lloyd George ‘I would rather leave Russia Bolshevik until she sees her way out of it than see Britain bankrupt. And that the surest road to Bolshevism in Britain’ (Mawdsy 2008)
Red and Whit factions continue fighting
4.4 Civil War and More 2
Rebellon against Bolsheviks at the naval base at Kronstadt 1921 attempting a third revolution that was suppressed by the Red Army
The Bolshevik ‘Cheka’ secret police execute anyone in the army who they think doesn’t perform (anti-retreat detachments authorised to kill fleeing soldiers
White’s - Denikin’s Whites and Ukrainian Nationalists kill more than 100,000 Jews
Estimated Civil war deaths 7-10 million (larger than WWI deaths). 2 million die from war-related epidemics, typhoid, dysentery, cholera, 5 million die due to famine of the Volga-Urals region 1921-22 supplies requisitioned by Red Army, urban industry and also drought affected
Whites lack resources, numbers, unity and therefore lose.
4.4.1 Technology and war
Industrialised equipment available to Russians
British tanks available to Whites, Taking of Archangel -
RAF seaplanes, bombers and warships available
Churchill wanted Bolshevism strangled in the cradle but little allied appetite for the fight - warfare also impeded by the sheer size of Russia
Battle of Warsaw (last cavalry battle) 1919 confirms Polish independence ending the Soviet dream of a Red Bridge across Poland to German revolutionaries
4.4.1 Technology and war 2
Development of railways vital and of great strategic importance during the civil war e.g. armoured combat trains, the Czech Legions use them to counter the Soviets abut disperse in 1918 when armistice signed
Overall the network favoured the Reds but their absence e.g. in the south and Ukraine Steppe and against vast numbers of Denkin’s White Russian cavalry meant that the Reds could lose as well
4.5 Modernity Soviet Style
Soviet Modernity different from western in that ‘the Soviet project is more overtly sponsored by the state’
Russian Revolution - ‘a radical reworking of economic, political and legal institutions’ including a ‘Decree on Land’ abolishing private property and allowing the distribution among the peasants of lands formerly owned by the monarchy, nobility and the Orthodox Church
The new regime wanted replacement of the market-based system with a new system based on consumers’ needs. Workers committees took over commercial and industrial property, key sectors were nationalist including foreign investors’ assets.
4.5 Modernity Soviet Style 2
Tsarist judiciary replaced by people’s courts and revolutionary tribunals, everyone declared equal, Russian women get the vote earlier than European women
All other parties abolished, papers and other writings heavily censored, Church’s property confiscate, clerics killed, church made subservient to the state more than that to the Romaonvs.
The new ‘Soviet Man’ a selfless, disciplined servant of the collectivist goes of the Revolution - Trotsky believes the ‘man’ would rise to the heights of an Aristotle, Goethe or Marx (1924).
4.5 Modernity Soviet Style 3
Centra Committee included a women’ department (Zhenotdel) women given new rights re abortion and divorce on demand 1926 ‘postcard divorce’, progressive feature of revolution
Bolsheviks take culture seriously - avant-garde creativity in the arts e.g. architecture, painting, sculpture and literature, Bogdanov sets up ‘proletkults’ clubs started to encourage working-class artistic development and activity - eventually fizzled out as proved incompatible with communist party control and discipline and as 1920’s economic problems worsened - Lenin not keen on avant- garde
A feeling of Soviet encirclement emerges as communists in other states fail, Stalin ‘socialism in one country’ 1926
4.5 Modernity Soviet Style 4
Disfunction between village peasants in traditional village agricultural communes and Bolsheviks objective of large-scale socialist agriculture (scientific and cooperative agricultural methodologies) to feed the towns and cities
The smychka “hammer and sickle’
Pragmatism of NEP (New Economic Policy) 1921 - 1928 Lenin categorises as ‘strategic retreat’ or state capitalism’ a transition to socialism proper
The Scissors Crisis (Trotsky a gap between agricultural lower priced) commodity and industrial (higher price items) opens
