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Foreign Policies 1917 → 1922
failure to export the revolution abroad scares lenin
March 3rd: signs the Brest-Litovsk Treaty to get out of the war
failure of a war against independent Poland who had backing from France, UK, US and Ukraine
Poland gains significant amounts of land in the Treaty of Riga 1921
bolsheviks win the Russian civil war despite foreign intervention (Churchill was v. against the bolsheviks)
1921: Treaty of Rapallo between russia and germany
march 1921: British-USSR trade agreement
February 1924: Ramsay MacDonald formally recognised the Bolshevik Government
Treaty of Rapallo
they denounce all war-claims against each other
Germany pays Russia to allow German military tests and education
flight school at Lipetsk
trade agreement: russia exports grain to Germany
1926: renewed by stresseman as treaty of berlin
Zinoviev Letter
daily mail forged a letter 4 days before the election saying:
a labour government would enable a Bolshevik style revolution in britain
1924: relations breakout for the inter-war years
Constituent Assembly
bolsheviks had won barely a quarter in the November elections
so lenin had the assembly dissolved at gun point by the red guard
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
3 march 1918
Lenin had been bankrolled by germany for many years and continued to be after the revolution so he felt it was a ‘safe’ move
should germany win russia woulnd’t be worse off and should germany lose russia stood to gain more territory
Trotsky took a middle ground between lenin and left Revolutionaries who felt the war should continue as a revolutionary crusade against germany
sokolnikov declared as instructed by trotsky that the treaty was not freely-negotiated and rather a diktat
terms were humiliating for russia → 3 bil. roubles reparations + lost 1/3 of European Russian land
Russian Civil War
1918-20
bolsheviks were seen to be forcing Russian authority over the country like the tsars
national forces in Georgia and Ukraine → greens
SRs joined the whites angry they didn’t have a say in government
June 1918: Petrograd population decreased by 1/3 due to famine
whites had nothing to offer ordinary Russian people and their reputation of brutality was as great as the red’s
bolsheviks maintained control of railways and industrial centres so had access to munitions
white and green armies were not united so bolsheviks could defeat them one by one
the Cheka
secret police
created Dec. 1917 under Felix Dzerhinsky
trotsky ended the independence of trade unions and brought workers under martial discipline on the same term as soldiers
red army
Trotsky created the Red army as commissar for war
within two years he had raised an army of 3 mil men
death sentence was imposed for desertion or disloyalty
he enforced conscription with the slogan “Everything for the Front” using the dangers russia was facing as justification
introduction of war communism
centralisation of power in a time of crisis
forcible grain and livestock seizure with no compensation
state control of industry
Kronstadt Rising
March 1921
15 man revolutionary committee, led by Petrechenko, drew up an official manifesto demanding:
free elections
freedom of speech, press, assembly
trade union rights
more equality in food rationing
these were genuine communists disgusted with the way lenin was running the country
Trotsky sent 60,000 Red Army soldiers and Cheka members
Leaders were shot as white reactionaries
this leads to Lenin introducing NEP
Three constitutions (spans Lenin and Stalin)
1918: formally recognised working class and ruling class
they would have political power by transfer of ownership to the state → Lenin would rule “on their behalf”
1924: officially creates USSR → brought russia into constitutional arrangement with Ukraine, Belorussia and Transcaucasia
1936: banned all formal political party oppositions
two years after coming into force, chief architect Nikolai Bukharin was executed proving pomise of basic civil rights a lie
