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Creating a new society
Contents
Key terms............................................................................................................... 2
Historical perspectives / Historiography................................................................4
AOS2...................................................................................................................... 8
The first six months of Bolshevik Rule................................................................9
Early decrees and policies................................................................................ 11
The Cheka......................................................................................................... 14
Dissolution of the constituent assembly...........................................................17
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk...............................................................................20
Civil War........................................................................................................... 23
The Red Army................................................................................................... 27
The Red Terror.................................................................................................. 29
War Communism.............................................................................................. 33
Everyday impacts of the Civil War....................................................................38
The Kronstadt Revolt........................................................................................ 39
New Economic Policy........................................................................................ 42
Death of Lenin/Summary..................................................................................44
Western
liberal/conservative
Revisionist
Key terms
Historians
Soviet/Western
Marxist
Western
Revisionist
Libertarian
liberal/Russian
liberal
Deutscher, Isaac
Figes, Orlando
Acton, Edward
Berkman,
Hill, Christopher
Lynch, Michael
Figes, Orlando
Alexander
Ponomarev, B.N.
Nove, Alexander
Fitzpatrick, Sheila
Reed, John (Ten
Swain, Geoffrey
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi
Days that Shook
Greenwood
Rabinowitch,
the World)
Pipes, Richard
Alexander
Taylor, A.J.P
Ulam, Adam
Service, Robert
Volkogonov,
Smith, Steve
Dmitri
Suny, Ronald
Cherniaev,
Nettl, J.P.
Vladimir
White, Alan
Note: Classic liberals and conservative Russians
(such as Volkogonov) are grouped together.
Names
AOS1
AOS2
Alexander II
Chernov, Victor (role in Constituent
Brusilov, General
Assembly)
Chernov, Victor
Sverdlov (role in elections and
Durnovo, Peter (minister of the interior) Declaration of the Rights of Toilers
Gapon, Father Georgei
Kamenev, Lev
Karensky, Alexander
Khabalov, General
Kornilov, General
Lenin, Vladimir
Lvov, Prince
Lvov, V.N.
Martov (Menshiviks)
Milyukov, Paul (union of unions and
Kadets)
Mirskii, Prince SviatopolkNikoleiveich, Grand Duke Nikolai
Plehve, Vyacheslav
Plekhanov (SDs)
Prince Potemkin (Battleship)
Rasputin, Gregory
Rodzianko, Mikhail
Stalin, Josef
Stolypin, Peter
Trotsky, Leon
Tsarevitch Alexei
Tsarina Alexandra
Witte, Sergei
Zinoviev, Grigory (Bolshevik)
Movements, ideas and documents
AOS1
All Russian Democratic Labour Party
(SDs)
All Russian Union of Peasants
April Theses
Assembly of Russian Factory Workers
(1905)
Bolsheviks
Duma (background and makeup of
each of four)
Ethnic minority groups (Jews, Poles,
Georgians etc)
Fifth Duma (ww1)
Kadets
Kronstadt Sailors
Liberals (difference to socialists)
Maximalists (left SR)
Mensheviks
Military Revolutionary Committee
(MilRevCom)
Mir
Narodniks (Populists)
National Zemstvo Conference
Octobrists
Peasants (demands and aims)
Petrograd garrison
Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers, Sailors
and Workers
Provisional Committee (12)
Provisional Government
Revolutionaries (right SRs)
Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDs)
Socialist Revolutionaries
AOS2
The Declaration of the Rights of Toilers
and Exploited People. (date, relation to
Constituent Assembly)
All Russian Communist Party
Constituent Assembly
Cossacks
Czech legion
Green Armies
Komuch (Committee of Members of the
Constituent Assembly, relation to Czech
legion)
Left SRs (role in CA and Bolshevik
coalition)
New Economic Policy
Peoples Army (Komuch)
SovNarKom (Soviet of Peoples
Commisars)
State capitalism
White Armies
Soviet
St Petersburg Soviet (including arrest
December 1905)
State Council
Tsarist council of ministers
Union of Unions
Urban workers (demands and aims)
Zemstvo
Dates
AOS1
Emancipation of the Serfs
Great Spurt
1904, February 8
1904, May 27-8
1905, January (strikes)
1905, January 9th (Sunday)
1905, September (Treaty of
Portsmouth)
1905, October
1914,
1914,
1914,
1914,
1915,
1915,
1916,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
1917,
July 30th
Mid-August (Galicia)
August 28th (which battle)
September (which battle)
July
August (Duma)
July-August (which offensive?)
Jan 9th
Feb 23rd
Feb 28th
March 2
April 3
April 4
July 2
July 4 (Kronstadt, Putilov)
July 6 (arrests)
July 8
July 18
August 24
August 26
August 27
October 10 (Meeting)
October 23
October 24
October 25
December (armistice)
AOS2
1917, October 26 (SovNarKom)
1917, October 27 (which decrees?)
1917, October 30 (Kerensky in Moscow)
1917, November 12 (which decree)
1917, November 12 (elections)
1917, December 7 (Cheka)
1918, February (Gregorian calendar)
1918, February 18 (negotiations break
down)
1918, February 19
1918, February 22
1918, March 3 (treaty)
1918, June 8
1918, June 11 (Kombedy)
1918, June 28 (decree on
Nationalisation)
1918, July 17 (execution of Tsar)
1918, August 30 (assassinations)
1918, November 21(private trade)
Soviet
Historical records written with
the express approval of the
Communist Party. These records
were designed to present the
official record of events, and
were often altered on the
whims of particular leaders.
Western liberal
Generally written in the
immediate aftermath of the
revolution and during the Cold
War.
Shaped by the political climate
of the Cold War, the liberal
interpretation of the revolution
is politically conservative and
fundamentally hostile to the
notions of socialism, Marxist
theory and all things
communist.
Acknowledge the out datedness
of the tsarist system, and
viewed revolution in general as
a necessary evil to produce a
freer society, but preferred
February to October because
the latter ended any prospect of
a western democracy that the
first would have allowed.
Many would view October as a
tragedy which nearly destroyed
Russia as a world power.
Instead of building a new
society, the socialist revolution
brought about an era of Red
Tsars.
For liberal historians, October
was not a genuine revolution. A
revolution entails mass support,
which the Bolsheviks did not
have. October was nothing
more than a political coup, a
seizure of power by military
force without popular approval.
Liberal historians have a more
complex view of post-October
events than soviet historians,
Libertarian
Focus on the role of the masses
rather than particular leaders.
Argue that the revolution was a
genuine mass uprising betrayed
by the Bolsheviks.
AOS2
SovNarKom
The Soviet of Peoples Commisars (Soviet of Narod Commissars in Russian) was
formed after the October 25 coup to replace the Provisional Government. It was
made up of 17 Commissars, which were ministers with different portfolios, similar
to the tsarist and P.G. systems.
Initially the Bolsheviks had difficulty taking over the administration of the
government. Many civil servants went on strike in response to the coup, hiding
the keys to government offices and refusing the Bolsheviks access to the State
Bank.
Initially the Bolsheviks had significant problems taking over the running of the
government. The civil service went on strike to protest the coup the keys to
state offices and facilities were hidden, and officials at the State Bank refused to
hand over any money to SovNarKom.
Tensions
The railway union, led by the Mensheviks and SRs, threatened to strike this led
to a number of prominent moderate Bolsheviks (Kamenev and Zinoviev) entering
talks with other political groups. Lenin and Trotsky refused to make any
compromises with the rival parties. Zinoviev and Kamenev resigned from the
Bolshevik Central Committee in protest at Lenin and Trotskys refusal to
compromise.
Few, if any, of the Bolsheviks had any experience in political or military
administration, nor in law or business. They were revolutionaries, not
politicians. Lenin believed they should be pragmatists, and respond only when
challenges arose.
Bolshevik policy
A belief in the imminent spread of socialist revolution to other countries coloured
much of the Bolshevik platform this led to stubbornness in the Bolshevik
dealings with non-socialist governments, which led to their opposition in the Civil
War. On becoming Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Trotsky declared What sort of
diplomatic work will we be doing anyway? I shall issue a few revolutionary
decrees to the people and shut up shop.
Law and order
The fall of the P.G. and with it the remains of the police led to a breakdown of law
and order. The massive wine cellar of the Winter Palace was looted, which led to
vicious fighting between the drunken participants. Even when officials had
collections of wine and liquor destroyed and the contents poured into the street,
crowds would gather to drink the alcohol from the gutter.
Brutal and excessive violence was widespread after the October Coup, generally
directed against the bourgeoisie and minority groups. In the absence of police,
the cities descended into mob rule, with brazen looting and lynchings not
uncommon. The Bolsheviks did not necessarily discourage this violence, as it
supported their aim of battling class enemies such as the bourgeoisie. They saw
it as the inevitable consequence of the bourgeoisies suppression of the
proletariat. Trotsky said There is nothing immoral in the proletariat finishing off a
class that is collapsing it is their right.
Class struggle
There was a dualism in Boshevik thought it was both authoritarian and
libertarian. Lenin believed that centralised control was necessary to revive
Russias shattered economy. Lenin also felt that the masses should be involved in
the revolution, despite his belief in the revolution from above led by the tight
Bolshevik party. He said it was essential to imbue the oppressed and working
people with confidence in their own strength.
A war on privilege was thus a key ideal of the revolution, and the masses were
encouraged to take matters into their own hands and punish the bourgeoisie.
The Bolsheviks were not anarchists, however, and wished to prevent the
destruction of property which would be useful for the creation of the socialist
economy. Lenin told a delegation of workers in 1917: You are the power: do all
you want to do, take all you want. We shall support you, but take care of
production, see that production is useful.
Liberal
Pipes: The events that
led to the overthrow of
the Provisional
Government were not
spontaneous but
carefully plotted and
staged by a tighly
organised conspiracy
October was a classic
coup detat.
Ulam: Except for the
workers at some
factories there was no
pro-Bolshevik
enthusiasm in the
population, only apathy.
Nove: No unified plan
existed. There was a
priority for war, and
numerous improvisations
as the economy
staggered from critical
shortage to outright
breakdown. Nove
Pipes: The system of
legislation the
Bolsheviks set in place
within two weeks of the
October coup, for all its
revolutionary rhetoric,
marked a reversion to
the autocratic practices
Revisionist
Figes:The Bolsheviks
were psychologically
unable to make the
transition from an
underground fighting
organisation to a
responsible party of
national government.
Smith:it is the
Bolsheviks incapacity to
realise their ends, their
blindness rather than
their vision, that is
striking. After they came
to power, they faced a
huge range of problems
for which MarxismLeninism left them illequippedPolicy,
therefore, was frequently
the outcome of
improvisation and
pragmatism as much as
of the hallowed tenets of
ideology. In other words,
the relationship between
belief and action was
complex, influenced by a
far larger range of
factors.
SovNarKom
1917, November 14 (which decree)
1917, December (armistice)
1918, February (Gregorian calendar)
1918, April (state capitalism)
Early aims
The first policies of the new soviet government were primarily concerned with
maintaining and strengthening their own position.
Radical economic improvement was also imperative.
The early decrees were, in part, aimed at encouraging popular participation in
the revolution.
The Bolsheviks declared that a global socialist revolution was now ripe, and a
new world was about to be built.
Land decrees
The P.G. had deferred land reform until after the promised elections of November
12.
On the 27th of October a decree was passed by SovNarKom giving the peasants
the right to seize the land of the gentry. Land seizures had been occurring since
February, but this degree legally sanctioned the practice.
This allowed the Bolsheviks to project an image of supporting the peasantry,
where traditionally they had been less popular than the SRs.
Decree on the press
Also on the 27th, a decree was passed banning the publication of newspapers
belonging to rival political groups.
Workers control decrees
On November 14 the Workers Control Decrees gave industrial workers the right
to apply to the government to be given control of their factories. The Committees
regulated rates of pay and hiring and dismissals. They were encouraged to take
measures to maximise productivity, but this rarely happened.
Peoples courts
On November 24 the established criminal justice system was replaced by
Peoples Courts, which constituted an elected judge making decisions based on
their revolutionary consciousness. The judges generally had no formal legal
training.
Further early decrees
Reforms in womens rights were introduced they were guaranteed equal
property rights, and marriage became a civil rather than religious ceremony,
allowing easy divorce.
All banks, stock companies and financial institutions were nationalised, and the
foreign debt cancelled.
An armistice with Germany was signed in early December.
Officers were elected by their subordinate troops.
After February, the Gregorian calendar was adopted Russia skipped twelve
days and moved in line with the rest of the world.
Details
Liberal
Pipes: The system of
legislation the
Bolsheviks set in place
within two weeks of the
October coup, for all its
revolutionary rhetoric,
marked a reversion to
the autocratic practices
of tsarist Russia. They
simply wiped out the
eleven intervening years
of constitutionalism.
Lynch: 1917 did not
mark a complete break
with the past. Rather it
was the replacement of
one form of stateauthoritarianism with
another.
Revisionist
Figes: There was no
master plan. When the
Bolsheviks came to
power they had no set
idea other than the
general urge to control
and centralize of how
to structure the
institutional relationships
between the party and
the Soviets
departure from the Bolshevik principle of a dedicated elite, but one could argue
that this policy was less relevant after the revolution had been achieved.
How did this topic affect a group/s in society?
The Cheka
Key Evidence: (Dates, Names,
People, Places, Documents)
Counter-revolution
Counter revolution was the major fear after the treaty of Brest Litvosk.
Lenin argued that the formation of a political police force was necessary to
expose counter-revolutionary and criminal activities.
In practice this meant that all political opposition was considered counter
revolutionary, and thus criminal.
Lenin argued that the bourgeoisie were inherently counter-revolutionary, because
they were opposed to the empowerment of the proletariat.
Cheka formed
On 7 December 1917, less than two months after the October Revolution, the
formation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating CounterRevolution, Speculation and Sabotage was drafted.
Initially it was indeed an extraordinary commission with temporary, limited
powers. It was also more of an investigatory body than a punitive one.
Initially its powers were limited the publication of lists of enemies of the people,
and confiscation of ration cards.
Iron Felix Dzerhinsky
The position of head of the Cheka was given to a Polish Bolshevik, Felix
Dzerhinsky.
He had been part of the MilRevCom and head of security for the Bolsheviks.
He had a reputation for toughness and integrity that earned him the nickname
Iron Felix
Increase of powers
Initially the body was made up of 23 staff.
However, in the midst of genuine counter revolution the Cheka was expanded,
gaining powers of arrest, imprisonment and eventually execution.
January 1918 witnessed the first attempt at the assassination of Lenin, which led
to growing needs for a strong political police force to defend the Bolshevik
leadership.
The breakdown in negotiations at Brest Litovsk in January 1918 and the threat of
a renewed German invasion also led to demands for a stronger Cheka to combat
German espionage.
The threat of German invasion prompted the release of an emergence decree:
The Socialist fatherland is in danger! by Lenin
The decree declared: Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counterrevolutionary agitators and German spies, are to be summarily shot.
The punishment of these individuals was arbitrary; they did not have to be tried
prior to being executed or exiled.
Few leading Bolsheviks had any qualms about the use of violence, believing it
necessary to defend their hard won victory.
While the all-powerful Cheka of the Civil War had not yet emerged, its
foundations were visible in the months after the October Revolution.
Primary Quotes: (From the period)
Our Revolution is in danger. Do not concern yourself with the forms of
revolutionary justice. We have no need for justice now. Felix Dzerhinsky
The bourgeoisie are bribing the outcast and degraded elements of society and
plying them with drink to use them in riots urgent measures are necessary to
fight the counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs. Lenin
Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators
and German spies, are to be summarily shot. Lenin, in The Socialist Fatherland
is in Danger!
Historiography: How did key historians interpret this event?
Historians debate whether the formation of the Cheka was premeditated, to ease
the Bolshevik takeover, or an unintended result of the effects of the war and
counter-revolution.
Official Soviet
History
Dzerzhinsky:
We stand for
organised terror.
The Cheka is
obliged to defend
the revolution and
conquer the
enemy even if its
sword does by
chance sometimes
fall on the heads
of the innocent.
Dzerzhinsky:
The sooner we
get rid of them,
the sooner we
reach socialism.
Lenin: How can
you make a
revolution without
executions?
Liberal
Revisionist
Russian
Fitzpatrick: The
Bolsheviks did not
see any parallel to
the Tsarist secret
police, though
Western historians
have often drawn
one. The Cheka, in
fact, operated
much more openly
and violently than
the old police.
Figes: Under
Lenins regime not
Stalins the Cheka
was to become a
vast police state. It
had its own
leviathan
infrastructure, from
house committees
Litvin: The
Bolshevik
leadership had
created an
extreme
situation, and
they saw a way
out in the
organisation of
a powerful
punitive
institution,
capable of
terrifying and
terrorising the
population.
Volkogonov:
Lenin himself
was the patron
saint of the
Cheka.
Dzerzhinsky:
The Cheka is not
a court.
Dzerzhinsky It
was necessary to
make the foe feel
that there was
everywhere about
him a seeing eye
and a heavy hand
ready to come
down on him the
moment he
undertook
anything against
the Soviet
Government.
assimilated the
practices of the
tsarist secret
police to such an
extent that as late
as the 1980s, the
KGB distributed to
its staff manuals
prepared by the
Okhrana nearly a
century earlier.
to the
concentration
camps, employing
more than a quarter
of a million people.
Volkogonov:
As during the
French
Revolution the
knife of the
guillotine
ceaselessly
reaped its
doleful harvest,
so now the
Cheka gunned
its way through
the population.
Volkogonov:
Like the sound
of a bolt being
shot, the two
syllables, Cheka, would stop
any
conversation.
Elections
Elections were originally proposed for the 17 th of September, but were postponed
by the P.G. to November 12.
The Bolsheviks seized power on October 25, and were faced with the question of
how to respond to the elections they were unlikely to win.
Lenin argued in favour of delaying the elections, giving the Bolsheviks time to
increase their influence, particularly among the peasantry (where the SRs were
traditionally the dominant socialist party).
Others disagreed Sverdlov, Chairman of the Soviet Executive Committee,
overruled Lenins objections and ordered the elections to go ahead.
Voting went ahead on November 12 as planned.
Results
As expected, the Bolsheviks lost the election they won 24% of the vote, or 175
of 707 seats in the Constituent Assembly.
The SRs won a majority, with 370 of 707 seats.
The SRs had a clear majority with the peasant vote, which made up the vast
majority of their support. The Bolsheviks, however, had resoundingly won the
proletarian vote that of the workers, soldiers and sailors.
The Bolsheviks considered the winning of the urban votes was more significant
than winning the rural vote.
Lenins response (wa wa wa wa)
Lenin claimed that the elections went ahead too early before the Bolsheviks
were well known throughout Russia. As a result, many peasants supposedly
would have voted for the Bolsheviks.
He also claimed that the people were not aware of the SR split, and eventually
convinced the Left SRs (who won 40 seats against the Right SRs 370) to form a
coalition with the Bolsheviks in the SovNarKom government from December.
bourgeois parliamentarianism
Lenin decided that Soviet government was a higher form of democracy than the
bourgeois parliament.
He thought that the role of the Constituent Assembly should be to endorse and
legitimise the actions of the Bolsheviks (who had of course seized power in the
name of the people) since October.
It was not expected to make decisions on matters of political power and structure
these would be the concerns of the Bolsheviks and the soviet.
Martial law
On 5 January 1918, the day the Constituent assembly was due to open, martial
law was declared in Petrograd and public gatherings were made illegal.
Official Soviet
History
Protasov: the
actions of the
Bolshevik leadership in
regard to the
Constituent assembly
were in face both
logical and consistent,
because they were
appropriate to the
political and ethical
principles of he party.
Liberal
Pipes: The machine
gun became for them
the principle instrument
of political persuasion.
The unrestrained
brutality with which they
henceforth ruled Russia
stemmed in large part
from the knowledge,
gained on January 5
(and 6) that they could
use it with impunity.
Volkogonov: It seems
unlikely that the
Bolsheviks gave any
thought to the fact that
giving promise while in
opposition is a different
thing from fulfilling it in
government. On every
point - peace, land, liberty,
Constituent Assembly,
freedom of the press and
all the rest their
promises rapidly changed
into coercion, limitation,
alteration, a different
reading or an outright
denial. Even the land,
which they did give, they
Revisionist
made undesirable by
confiscating everything it
produced.
Bourgeois imperialism
A key aspect of Leninism was the international socialist movement, which Lenin
Soviet/ Western
Marxist
Liberal
Revisionist
Malone: The Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk merely
exchanged one war for
another.
Civil War
Key Evidence: (Dates, Names,
People, Places, Documents)
Early conflict
After October the Bolsheviks were able to control Petrograd easily. In Moscow,
however, street fighting with loyalists went on for over a week.
Kerensky led some Cossack troops against the Bolsheviks on 30 October at
Pulkovo Heights. He was eventually defeated by the Red Guards and Kronstadt
Foreign interventionists
The Germans were the first foreign power to send troops to Russia after 1918.
Commonwealth forces landed in Murmansk and Archangelsk in March 1918.
Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok and were joined by American and
Commonwealth troops in August 1918.
The British and French navies supported Denikins AFSR.
Britain, France and the US gave financial support to the Whites.
The foreigners had multiple reasons for intervening:
- The Allies wanted Russia to rejoin the war.
- Japan had territorial ambitions, which the Americans were keen to counter.
- Some were opposed to the Bolshevik ideology of spreading international
socialist revolution.
- SovNarKom had nationalised foreign business interests and annulled
foreign loans.
Faction
Red Armies
Red Army (inc.
Kronstadt sailors)
White Armies
AFSR
Czech legion
North-western Forces
Kolchaks Siberian
forces
Green Armies
Peasant separatists
Foreign
Interventionists
British
(Commonwealth)
French
Germans
Japanese (in the Far
East)
Americans
Motivation
Defence of the revolution
Supported the Constituent Assembly and to a certain
extent the monarchy.
Attempting to fight their way out of Russia and back to
Europe.
Supported the SR-led Provisional Government in
Siberia.
Red Victory
The involvement of foreigners in the Civil War reaffirmed Lenins belief in
Liberal
Revisionist
Victory
By the end of 1920 the Red Army had won a decisive victory against the Whites,
Greens and foreign interventionists.
However, thousands of Red Army soldiers were killed over the three years of civil
war, and vast portions of Russian territory was outside of Soviet control. This led
to major famines during the war which killed far more than the actual fighting.
Explanations for the Red victory
Geography
70 million people in Red areas, less
than 10 million in White areas.
Ideology
Trotskys leadership
Soviet/ Western
Marxist
Liberal
Revisionist
As its powers grew, the Cheka took on other responsibilities border control,
labour conscription, countering army desertions, uncovering foreign espionage
and internal political dissent, exposing corruption, and coordinating epidemic and
famine relief.
The White Terror
The White Terror was similarly brutal towards suspected Bolsheviks and other
socialists. Suspected communists were often nailed by their left hand and left
foot to trees with railway spikes.
Socialist workers (often merely members of trade unions) were often buried neck
deep and ridden over by cavalry.
Pogroms (lynch mobs) were commonly perpetrated against Jewish people in the
Ukraine over 100,000 Jews were murdered.
Primary Quotes: (From the period)
Chekist We are not waging war against individual persons. We are
exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class.
Chekist: Events compelled the party of the revolution to give up some of its
aspirations, hopes and illusions in order to save the essential framework of the
revolution.'
Chekist: One needs only to go into the kitchen and look into his soup pot. If
there is meat in it, then he is an enemy of the people. Stand him up against the
world.
Chekist: The bullet was not directed against Lenin, but against the proletariat
as a whole.
Dzerzhinsky: Do you think that I seek forms of revolutionary justice; we are not
now in need of justice. It is war now face to face, a fight to the finish. Life or
death.
Dzerzhinsky: The Cheka is oblished to defend the revolution and conquer the
enemy, even if its sword does by chance sometimes fall on the heads of the
innocent.
Dzerzhinsky: We stand for organised terror this should be frankly stated.
Kaplan, Fanya: I have long had the intention of killing Lenin. In my eyes he has
betrayed the revolution.
Kaplan, Fanya: My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my
own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had
resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was
exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist
official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labor. After the Revolution, I was freed. I
favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it.
Lenin: It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully
rationed.
Lenin: One man with a gun can control one hundred without one.
Lenin: When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom
there will be no state.
Lenin: If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and a White Guardist, what sort
of revolution is that?
PRAVDA: Without mercy, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let
them be thousands for the blood of Lenin and Uritsky let there be floods of
bourgeois blood more blood, as much as possible.
Sverdlov: (on the ordering of the Tsars execution) We decided it here. Ilyich
believed that we should not leave the Whites a living banner to rally around.
Historiography: How did key historians interpret this event?
Soviet/ Western
Marxist
Liberal/ Russian
Revisionist
Deutscher: Besieged
fortresses are hardly
ever ruled in a
democratic manner.
Deutscher: Over and
over again emergencies
had driven the ruling
party to act against its
original intentions, to
contradict and overreach
itself.
Deutscher: Events
compelled the party of
the revolution to give up
some of its aspirations,
hopes and illusions in
order to save the
essential framework of
the revolution.
Deutscher: Trotsky had
not shrunk from using
terror in the Civil War,
but he can be said to
have been as little fond
of it as a surgeon is fond
of bloodshed.
Hill: The attempt to
overthrow the
Bolsheviks after the
revolution produced
cruelties indeed, but the
revolutionary process
abolished a regime of
despair and created a
new world of hope.
Trotsky: The execution
of the Tsar and his family
was needed not only to
frighten, horrify and
instil a sense of
hopelessness in the
enemy, but also to shake
up our own ranks, to
show that there was no
retreating, that ahead
lay total victory or total
doom.
War Communism
Key Evidence: (Dates, Names,
People, Places, Documents)
War Communism
War communism is not a single policy or decree it is a collection of hundreds of
decrees and policies issued from mid 1918-1921.
The term War Communism was not used at the time it was coined afterwards as
a justification for the failure.
It emerged as a result of the governments attempt to stabilise the economy,
after the successive shocks of the Treaty and the White control of many of the
productive regions.
Food and fuel shortages were still critical. The policies were designed to stabilise
food supplies in the city, halt industrial breakdown and supply the troops at the
fronts.
Industry nationalisation
While State Capitalism allowed most industry to continue without much
interference, War Communism was based on the nationalisation of almost all
industries.
On 28 June 1918 the Decree on Nationalisation was released.
The decree said that the state would take full control of metallurgical,
textile, electrical, mining, cement and tanning industries.
A further decree on 29 November 1920 nationalised all factories that employed
more than ten workers, and all factories using powered machinery with more
than five workers.
This control of smaller industrial enterprises was new in War Communism.
The VSNKh, or Supreme Economic Council, was now the coordinator of the
centralised economic system. It had originally been intended as an advisory
body.
The attempt to immediately nationalise everything produced an enormous
bureaucracy. Departments and officials competed, and held up the distribution of
materials and workers to understaffed industries.
The lack of adequate manpower for industry, due to the ongoing wars and the
flight of urban workers back to the countryside, also impeded economic recovery.
Militarisation of the workplace
In line with the ongoing Civil War, many workplaces were militarised. People
marched to work, and gave up the right to, among others, the 8-hour day.
The ideal of workers control was abandoned, as state control of working hours
and conditions increased.
Harsh punishments were instituted for unproductive workers generally the
confiscation of food rations.
The enticement was that the Kombedy members were able to keep some of the
grain they confiscated.
This was not particularly effective, however, as many peasants were relunctant
to turn against others.
The Kombedys were abandoned by the end of 1918.
Requisition squads
Starting in January 1919, armed workers and Chekists were formed into grain
requisitioning squads, and sent out to seize hoarded surplus from the villages.
This was known in Russian as prodrazverstka.
Often the squads took everything they could find, and left no grain for seed the
next year.
The peasants closed ranks and began to organise armed resistance to the
requisition squads.
Since there was no incentive to produce surplus grain, peasant families simply
stopped planting any more than they needed for their family.
Between 1917-1921, the amount of land under cultivation dropped 40%.
Harvests were 37% of usual.
Assessing War Communism
Much of the chaos was due to the poor organisation and communication in the
Bolshevik government. Decrees were often contradictory, and local officials acted
more or less autonomously.
Economic statistics
October 1917 19.1 Bn Roubles
January 1919 61.3 Bn Roubles
1920 1.2 Tn Roubles
1922 2 quadrillion Roubles
1 Rouble in 1913 was worth 100 million at the end of 1922.
In 1922 there was 83% less production than in 1913.
In August 1918 1 kg of grain was worth 1 rouble according to the Supreme
Economic Council.
On the Moscow black market it was 18 roubles.
On the Petrograd black market is was 26.
If 100 units produced in 1913, in 1922:
Coal 27 units
Iron 2.4 units
Cotton 5.1 units
Petrol 42.7 units
In 1920 13.5% less land was used for agriculture than in 1913.
In combination with a lack of horses and equipment, 60% of the grain produced
in 1913 was produced in 1920.
Half as many people employed in 1921 as 1918. The size of the proletariat
halved as people went back to the country.
By the end of 1921 more than 70 per cent of resources were obtained on the
black market.
Western
Revisionist
liberal/conservative
Pipes: Instead raising
Fitzpatrick: The
productivity to
Bolsheviks took over a war
unprecedented heights,
economy in a state of near
War Communism had
collapse, and their first
reduced it to levels that
and overwhelming
threatened Russias very problem was to keep it
survival.
running.
Pipes: Before the
Fitzpatrick: From the
revolution, the Bolsheviks outbreak of civil war in
idealised the urban worker mid-1918 the Bolsheviks
as a creature endowered caution began to
with unique moral
disappear.
qualities. Political
Fitzpatrick: With the old
responsibility quickly
world disappearing in the
dispelled these illusions: flamed of Revolution and
the worker turned out to Civil-War, it seemed to
be neither better nor
many Bolsheviks that a
worse than anyone else, new world was about to
and just as concerned with rise, phoenix-like, from the
children.
Peasant: (Civil War) 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.
Peasant (Civil War) We welcome Soviet power, but give us ploughs, harrows
and machines and stop seizing our grain, milk, eggs and meat.
Historiography: How did key historians interpret this event?
Soviet/ Western
Marxist
Trotsky: Send me
communists who know
how to obey.
Western
liberal/conservative
Chamberlin: The realm
the Bolsheviks had
conquered bore a strong
resemblance to a desert.
Revisionist
Perfect: The Civil War
bred a generation of men
who were quick to reach
for their pistols when their
authority was questioned.
Perfect: By conquering
the counter-revolutionary
ring of fire, the Soviet
regime survived the Civil
War.
The communists refused to negotiate, leaving the possibility that the ice could
thaw after the winter. The Kronstadters would then be able to attack the capital,
as they had in October.
Reasoning
The Bolsheviks thought that if they gave in to the Kronstadters, other rebellions
would break out across Russia.
Battle
On 7 March 1921, Trotsky ordered 50,000 Red Army soldiers to launch an
offensive on the 16,000 Kronstadters.
The Red Army was backed by Chekist machine gunners.
The Kronstadters resisted for over a week but eventually were defeated by the
larger Bolshevik force.
At least 10,000 Red Army soldiers were killed and 5000 Kronstadters.
Lessons learned
A fundamental change in policy occurred after the putting down of the armed
revolt. Lenin accepted that the fundamental economic policies in place were
unfeasible.
Primary Quotes: (From the period)
Kronstadt sailors: The autocracy has fallen. The Constituent Assembly has
departed to the realm of the damned. The commisarocracy is collapsing. The
moment has come for a true government of toilers, a government of soviets.
Kronstadt petition: Soviets without Bolsheviks.
Kronstadters: One might have thought that these were not factories but the
forced labour prisons of tsarist times.
Serge, Victor: The revolt was the beginning of a ghastly fratricide.
Historiography: How did key historians interpret this event?
Many view the suppression of Kronstadt as the moment when the Bolsheviks
broke their last links with the working classes and the ideals of October.
Soviet/ Western
Marxist
Lenin: This (the
Kronstadt revolt) was
the flash which lit up
reality better than
anything else.
Trotsky: (The
Kronstadters) were the
pride and glory of the
revolution the reddest
of the red.
Trotsky: Only those
who surrender
unconditionally may
count on the mercy of
the Soviet Republic.
Western
liberal/conservative
Revisionist
Fitzpatrick: It was a
symbolic parting of the
ways between the working
class and the Bolshevik
Party.
By 1923 a major gap between the prices of manufactured goods and grain had
emerged. Grain had become cheaper because of the increased supply and
smaller population. Manufactured goods were still expensive, however.
It was feared that the peasantry would be reluctant to trade their grain for
overpriced goods.
The Bolshevik solution was, of course, to introduce price controls in the
manufacturing sector.
Party reaction
As the regime loosened its control on the economy it strengthened its grip on
discipline both inside and outside the party.
Lenin was wary of the possibility of internal discontent at the Tenth Party
Congress from 8 March 1921. He believed the opposition factions were
unrealistically idealistic.
Decree On Party Unity
At the Tenth Party Congress Lenin unveiled a decree called On Party Unity. He
said I do not think it will be necessary for me to say much on this subject.
Under the decree, factions within the Bolsheviks were ordered to be disbanded.
Individual Bolsheviks could still voice their discontent, but they could not
organise factional groups with others.
Those who violated this order could be expelled from the party and ultimately
punished by the Cheka.
As a result, it was impossible for any individual to openly oppose Lenin (and later
Stalin)
Revisionist
Perfect: The peasant
rebellions and Kronstadt
revolt had made it clear
that the authoritarian
economic policies of war
communism were creating
more problems than they
were solving.
McCauley: If War
Communism was a leap
into socialism then NEP
was a leap out of
farming.
socialism.
Death of Lenin/Summary
Key Evidence: (Dates, Names,
Review of key terms (add them to
People, Places, Documents)
the main list!):
Strokes
Lenin suffered his first stroke in May 1922, which left him paralysed down his left
side. He suffered two more in December and was left wheelchair-bound.
Testament
In late December 1922 he dictated a testament to one of his secretaries. He
denounced Stalin as rude and power hungry, one planned to appoint someone
else before he died.
Death
He had another stroke in March 1923 that left him totally paralysed and unable to
speak. He died on 21 January 1924.
Funeral
27 January 1923. Stalin delivered the eulogy, Trotsky was not present. At 4 pm
cannons were fired across the nation as he was lowered into the ground.
Primary Quotes: (From the period)
Soviet/ Western
Marxist
Western
liberal/conservative
Revisionist
Perfect: The
revolutionary regime had
brought not only turmoil,
suffering and nightmares,
but also hope, opportunity
and utopian dreams.
Rosenberg: Soviet
policies were essentially a
radical extension, rather
than a break with the
past.
Perfect: For all of the
revolutionary rhetoric,
much of the old world
remained in the new
society.