Russian Revolution AOS 2

Bolsheviks gain access to the money in the State Bank

20th of November 1917

Trotsky on violence against bourgeoisie

"there is nothing immoral on the proletariant finishing off of a class that is collapsing- that is it's right'

Cheka formed.

7th of December 1917

list of 'enemies of the people'

the list given to the Cheka to arrest or execute, because they are against the Bolsheviks

amount of staff in cheka when formed

23

Alter Litvin on the Cheka

"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"

Robert Service on the decrees

' they were designed to inspire, to excite into instigate'

Lenin on decrees

'yes, we shall destroy everything and on the ruins we shall build our temple!'

decree of peasantry seize land of the Gentry

27th of October 1917

workers were guaranteed in eight hour working day

29th of October 1917

Ethnic minorities able to declare independence

2nd November 1917

first country to declare independence

Finland (17 November 1917)

Further decrees

- reforms on women's rights
-Women were guaranteed equal property rights and marriage was made a civil rather than church affair
- Homosexuality was decriminalised and openly gay men such as Geory chicherin served in government

switch from Julian calendar to Gregorian calendar

february 1918

Alec Nove on economy

Bolsheviks ' tried to make things worse, since they were unconcerned with an orderly land settlement, industrial production or the military situation. They sought to read the whirlwind. They contributed to the breakdown but did not cause it.'

Supreme Council of the National Economy formed

December 2nd 1917

Supreme Council of the National Economy

the central body to coordinate economic activity

Elections to the Constituent Assembly initially planned

17th of September 1917

Elections to the Constituent Assembly took place on

12th November 1917

votes counted

December to January 5th 1918

Votes/Seats Bolsheviks won

24% of the votes, 175 seats

Votes/Seats SR won

52% of the vote, 370 out of the 707 seats

where did bolsheviks have majority of votes?

towns and cities, including Moscow and Petrograd

Why did Lenin claim the election results were not accurate?

- only 2 weeks after October Revolution
- had gone ahead before Bolsheviks were well known in Russia
- people didn't know SR had split, and there was nothing that showed the difference between the right and left SR

Material Law declared in Petrograd

5th of January 1918

Consituent Assembly meets on

5th of January 1918 (around 4pm)

Consituent Assembly meetsn at

Tauride Palace

Bolshevik delegates stage a walkout on Lenin's signal

around 2am

Those who stay behind to watch meeting

Red Guards and Kronstadt Sailors

Chernov orders everyone to leave against Lenin's orders as guards are too tired (guards shove rifle butts at delegates to get them to leave)

4:40am

Chernov announces assembly will reconvene at

5pm

guards arrive at tauride palace but

doors are locked. Bolsheviks troops declare that the constituent assembly had been dissolved

Ron Sony on the election

'revolution was not like an election campaign in which the party that gains a majority gains the upper hand; Rather it was like a military campaign in which the side that can mobilise the greatest physical strength in the most sensitive places wins the day'

Victor Serge (not historian):

' the dissolution of the constituent assembly made a great sensation abroad. In Russia, it passed almost unnoticed'

lenin writes to comrades 'to secure Petrus at present means to conquer the whole world.'

September 1917

Lenin on war

wanted to pull out (party leaders were split), peace treaty with Germany needed at whatever cost

Leon Trotsky view:

policy: 'neither peace nor war'

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed

March 2nd 1918

Russia lost with Treaty of Brest-Litovsk:

- Ukraine (vital grain producing land)
- 1/3 of European Russia/ 45 million people

end of ww1

11th November 1918

Civil War

1918-1920

Petrograd bread ration march 1918

50g per day

Petrograd population

3 million to 2 million due to migration to countryside

two failed assassination attempts of Lenin

July and august 1918

who shot Lenin on August 30th 1918, leading to a bullet being lodged in his neck

Jewish lady from Ukraine, with German and SR ties, executed after 3 days without trial

czech troops in Russia marching to vladivostok to meet up with allies

40,000

White 'volunteer army' led By

general denikin, in south

Czech legion encouraged white army under

Admiral Kolchak in Siberia - East

Estonia ex Tsarist:

general Yudenich encourages white 'resistance army' in the northwest

White weaknesses

- Fewer soldiers (max 250,000)
- no single leader or aim
- not popular with the peasants
- didn't control areas with industries to supply the army
- no large populations from which to conscript soldiers
- geographically dispersed
- only common purpose was hatred of Bolshevikism

Red's strengths

- Controlled central Russia maintained supply lines
- control two major cities Moscow and Petrograd
- Controlled railways network
- Controlled industrial areas which gave access to munitions
- Could claim the whites were 'in league with foreign interventionists'
- had driving sense of purpose
- Brilliantly organised and led by Trotsky

Why allies feared, and wanted to stop spread of communism

- Sparticist uprising in Berlin, 1918
- Communistv republican Bavaria, 1918-19
- Hungary - Bela Kun, 1918

Boris Ponomarev on the civil war

'Soviet Russia found herself in a ring of fire'

number of red army members end of 1918

500,000

red army numbers after two years of Trotsky leadership

over 5 million

chief instrument in red terror

Cheka

Cheka renamed GPU

1922

Cheka would

destroy counter revolution and sabotage

Cheka/Red Terror led by

Felix Dzerzhunsjy

Cheka murders Romanovs at Ekaterinburg

july 1918

decree of authorising execution of Bolsheviks' opponents

February 1918

declaration of war on 'peasant bourgeoisie'

may 1918

creation of grain requisitioning squads

may 1918

military conscriptions imposed

july 1918

forced labour camps created

february 1919

Trotsky announced militarization of labour and abolish trade unions

december 1919

Red army

- Created by Trotsky Lenin gave him total confidence
- Attached political commissioners to army
- death sentence for desertion
- reimpose ranks titles and rigid discipline
- enforced conscription
- Those of 'questionable' social background used for backbreaking labour (war against the rich)
- elite of working class troops

Richard Pipes on Red Terror

'the "red terror "was not reluctant response to the actions of others but a... measure designed to nip in the bud any thoughts of resistance to dictatorship'

Dmitri volkogonov on Red Terror

'Lenin himself was the patron Saint of the cheka.'

War Communism

1918 - 1921

War communism refers to

all economic policies taken between 1918 and 1921 to win the civil war

by 1920 the rouble fell to...

1% of the 1914 value

industrial output at...

30% of 1914 levels by 1921

how many people died from diseases in two years during War Communism?

5 milllion

by 1921 grain production was...

less than 50% of the 1913 levels

did lenin accept foreign aid?

yes, from america

when did lenin cancel foreign aid?

1923

Bernard Pares on War Communism

'not merely war communism, such as it is appropriate to besieged city, but militant communism or rather pure communism, and its failure with self evident'

Richard Pipes on War Communism

'it that such rank amateurs would... turn upside down the economy of 10s of millions, subjecting it to innovations never attempted anywhere... says something of [their ]judgement.'

Alec Nove on War Communism

"A partly organised chaos"

communist regime in trouble by...

end of 1920

Kronstadt Sailor uprising forced...

bolsheviks to rethink policies

lenin later on Kronstadt Uprising:

'this was the flash which lit up reality better than anything else'

After Civil war problems:

- Requisitioning of grain increased
- military style approach to workplaces and reinforced by soldiers organised into 'labour armies'

strengthening of war communism made the people...

hate the government more

Prodrazverstka

requestioning of grain program

Ukraine and timbov in...

open revolt

thousands of workers go on strike in Moscow and Petrograd, over:
- Cutbacks to their bread rations
- Military methods imposed on factories

February 1921

Kronstadt sailors described by Trotsky as:

"the reddest of the red"

first to be controlled by soviets during dual authority

island of Kronstadt

Sailor who went to Petrograd:

"one might have thought that these were not factories but forced labour prisons of tsarist times."

sailors disturbed by rumour that...

worker protests had been suppressed by Cheka firing squads (false rumour)

who drafted a 15-point resolution?

Stepan Petrichenko

thousands of sailors rally in Kronstadt's Anchor Square on

1 march 1921

Soviet chairman

Mikhail Kalinin

Provisional Revolutionary Committee formed, Kronstadt declared free of Sovnarmkom (highest gov in soviet Russia) rule.

2 March 1921

The Petropavlosk Resolution demands:

- Freedom of speech and press for workers, peasants, Anarchists and left Socialist parties.
- Freedom of meetings, trade unions and peasant associations
- To elect a commission to review the cases of those imprisoned in jails and in concentration camps.
- To equalize rations for all workers, harmful sectors being excepted.

Kronstadt sailors call for...

'soviets without communists'

Kronstadt sailors did not..

- call for end to revolution
- demand greater freedoms for all; only workers, socialists, and peasants.

sailors wanted

'soviet power'