Imperial Russia

Russia pre 1855

- Severely economically underdeveloped
- Totally reliant on serfdom in 1853
- Serfs were also forced to join the military (for a period of 25 years)
- secret police, repressed minorities, enforced censorship, limited travel abroad, crushed any hint of rebellion
- Russia no longer able to dominate the European markets with its traditional exports of grain and raw materials
- feudal social hierarchy that still existed in the 1850s divided the elite (nobles) from the tax-paying peasants
- Emphasis on Russian nationalism: westernisers ans slavophiles

Crimean war (1853-56)

- Russians tried to expand to Balkans and caused tension with Britain and France
- Nicholas I died and so his son, Alexander II immediately agreed to an armistice that
lead to the Treaty of Paris on 30 March 1856

What did the Crimean war show?

Showed weakness and backwardness of Russia's social and economic structure

Alexander II's early reforms

- permitting less censorship in universities
- release of political prisoners
- eased restrictions on travel outside Russia

Alexander II:
Conditions of Serfs

- 90% of Russia's population were Serfs
- around half privately-owned and the others state-owned
- Some historians argue that these peasants were actually better off than agricultural labourers elsewhere in Europe
- Most were at the mercy of the landlord's steward who treated them like animals
- Could be separated from their family and sold like cattle
- Sexual abuse and exploitation
- Suffering starvation, many turned to cheap, home-distilled alcohol

Alexander II:
Reasons for the emancipation of the serfs

Economic: emancipation was needed for the empire's industrial development.
Military: Crimean War had shown the forces needed reorganisation.
Intellectuals: argued the need of change on moral grounds.
Practical: growing feeling of discontent among peasants themselves provoked uprisings.

Economic reasons for emancipation

- Freed serfs could move to cities and work in factories (industrial development)
- Free labour could be more efficient that forced labour
- serfdom kept standards of living low, reducing internal demand for goods

Military reasons for emancipation

- Armed forces needed reorganisation, conscripts needed to spend less time in active service, but this system wouldn't work with serfdom in place
- trained serfs sent back to communes could lead to uprisings
- also customary to free serfs after military service, meaning serfdom would end in a couple of generations anyways, better to tackle now than let it 'crumble from below'

Moral and economic reasons for emancipation

- incompatible with humanitarian standards expected of a civilised country
- degraded not only serfs but landlords, weakened moral character of upper class
- alienated Westerners, opposed to barabarism

Practical reasons for emancipation

- growing discontent among peasants
- 300 separate uprisings in decade before Crimean War

Alexander II:
Emancipation edict

- read out in churches all over Russia on 19 February 1861
- came into force on 5 March
- Only applied to privately owned serfs

Alexander II:
3 stages of emancipation

1) Freedom: right to marry, own property, run businesses, travel, legal protection
.2) Temporary obligation: continued to pay rent and were under landlord's control until ready to redeem their land. Amount of land had to be negotiated between peasants
and landowners and could vary from one area to another.
3) Redemption: began to pay for their land allotments with redemption payments.
They lived in farmsteads called mir where they remained until payments were complete. Landowners received the price of land in long-term government bonds.

Alexander II:
Positive results of the emancipation edict

- Some peasants did well out of land allocations
- Landowners who used compensation payments to pay off debts increased their wealth.
- Russia industry expanded and grain production increased.

Alexander II:
Negative results of the emancipation edict

- Peasants who received poor/over-priced land-allocations with high redemption
payments struggled to survive.
- Redemption payments reduced peasants' purchasing power and so failed to increase consumer demand and stimulate the economy.
- Some landlords charged high prices so peasants were forced to continue working for them
- Many fell into debt and were forced to sell out to landowners/kulaks
- Control of the mir was almost as oppressive as that of the former landowners.
- Disputes over land holdings and payments led to continuing peasant unrest.
- Selling of land left the nobility off worse than before - resentment of government.

Alexander II:
Military reforms

- Tried to raise morale and end some cruel forms of punishment in the Russian army
- Reduced military service to 10 years
- Established 15 military districts and cadet schools to improve training and discipline
- Conscription Act of 1874: nobles no longer exempt, all males aged 20 eligible, men with formal education served shorter terms, those with no education were taught to read.

Alexander II:
Positive results of military reforms

- New spirit of professionalism within the better-trained army
- Reduced government spending on army from 45% of total expenditure
- Increased literacy resulted from army education campaigns

Alexander II:
Negative results of military reforms

- Those better off often found substitutes to serve in their place
- Officer class remained largely aristocratic and retained old-fashioned values
- Russia did not keep pace with the West in terms of producing equipment or ammunition

Alexander II:
Legal reforms

- He wanted to replace the slow, inefficient, corrupt system
- The adversarial system was introduced in which the accused would be granted a defence lawyer and would take place in front of a Jury
- Judges were given proper training and their pay increased to make them less open to corruption

Alexander II:
Positive results of legal reforms

- Introduced theory of equality before the law which brought more impartial justice
- Courts weakened government, as they allowed critics to speak out

Alexander II:
Negative results of legal reforms

- Could not extend to villages; traditional peasant justice continued (slow to spread)
- Courts never fully introduced throughout the Russian Empire
- Police still had extensive powers (punish without bringing to trial)

Alexander II:
Cultural and educational reforms

- Daily newspapers no longer had to be submitted for censorship prior to publication as well as books and academic work
- international and domestic policies were discussed for the first time
- Culture flourished with the writings of men like Leo Tolstoy
- Humanities became just as important as science
- Women could attend university but not get a degree
- Schools became much freer and were opened to children of all classes and religions
- Village schools were no longer controlled by the Church
- Zemstva provided funding for these

Alexander II:
Positives of cultural and educational reforms

- Educational reforms led to huge increase in number of students going to university
- Many people from non-noble backgrounds could afford to go through scholarships
- 400,000 children attend primary-school in 1856, over 1 million in 1878

Alexander II:
Negatives of cultural and educational reforms

- Allowed more critical and independent thinker to emerge through the universities
- led to rise of groups like Land and Liberty in 1861

Alexander II:
Local government reforms

- Zemstva councils formed local government to decide matters of policy of all levels
- In 1870, dumas were set up to provide municipal self-government.

Alexander II:
Positives of local government reforms

- At local level, zemstvos and dumas proved very effective
- They promoted public health and welfare, improving hygiene, literacy and mortality
- Intellectuals participated in government and enabled peasants to hear reformers' ideas

Alexander II:
Negatives of local government reforms

- Only able to make limited progress on alcoholism, poverty, epidemics and famines
- Not universal (none in Siberia; by 1914 they only existed in 43/70 Russian provinces)
- Had limited capacity to implement more radical change
- Councillors were primarily from the landowning mobility or wealthy urban classes

Alexander II:
Economic reforms

- Von Reutern was appointed as minister of finance in 1862
- He established budgeting for all government departments and a new system to collect taxes
- Published Russia's first comprehensive budget
- Also set-up a state bank, putting the national currency on a stronger footing.

Alexander II:
Positives of economic reforms

- Foreign technical expertise and capital helped modernise and expand older industries
- Naptha Extraction Company opened up new potential for coal and oil extraction in 1879

Alexander II:
Church reforms

- The loyalty of believers was seen as vital in upholding the autocracy
- Changes were made to allow more capable priests to rise through the Church hierarchy.
- However, little was done about clerical poverty or the instability of many rural priests to perform their duties.

Alexander II:
Treatment of minorities

- Far more tolerant of Jews (could go to university)
- Jews could live beyond allocated areas if they had an academic degree
- still barred from owning land
- Allowed Finns greater independence

Alexander II:
Spread of opposition

- Alexander II's reforms were controversial. Not all his ministers agreed
- Outsiders were also critical; arguing that most reforms did not go far enough
- Growth of education created a larger and more critical student body
- Land and Liberty was founded in 1861 and believed there was a genuine alternative to autocracy
- The new intelligentsia that emerged proved influential in pressing for further reform and greater individual liberty
- In April, Dmitri Karakozov tried to assassinate the tsar
- Tolstoy replaced the liberal minister for education
- The Third Section of the police became increasingly active, tracking down those to face trial
- Chaikovsky Circle of 1871 spread the idea of peasants rebelling against the government
- Following further assassination attempts, Alexander declared a state of emergency and divided the country into military-style governorships in 1879

End of Alexander II

Reform plans were in progress to relieve the agitation of the people. Before these could be implemented, the People's Will was successful in killing the tsar in March 1881.

Alexander III

- Becomes Tsar in 1881
- Alexander was a conservative by nature
- suspicion of Western ideas
- contrasting Alexander as the repressive opposite of his father, the 'Tsar liberator'

Alexander III's domestic policies: Repression
Emergency powers

* New secret police, the Okhrana, established - 1881

Alexander III's domestic policies: Repression
Censorship

- Tightened into rigid system; maintained throughout reign.
- Statute on Police Surveillance allowed police more powers of surveillance
- expanded secret police network

Alexander III's domestic policies: Repression
Law

- Increased government interference in law courts.
- Judges' security of tenure ended
- JPs abolished

Alexander III's domestic policies: Repression
Land captains 1989

- New government agent, chosen from gentry by Provincial Governor (supervised by Interior Minister) to control peasants; could overrule mir; replaced Jps' functions.
- Greatly resented by peasants.

Alexander III's domestic policies: Repression
Revolutionary groups

- Weakened for a decade. Plot to assassinate tsar led to execution of Lenin's brother and four others in 1887.

Alexander III's domestic policies: Reaction
Ministers

Reactionary Pobedonostsev had great influence, together with Tolstoy and Katkov

Alexander III's domestic policies: Reaction
Zemstva

- Powers further reduced .
- 1890 Zemstva Act, 1892 Municipal Government Act; increased power of Interior Minister over zemstva officials and decisions. Intensified bureaucratic control and administrative centralisation. Vote further restricted.
- Government officials interfered in elections. - Meetings of zemstva presidents restricted.
- 57% zemstva places taken up by nobles in 1890

Alexander III's domestic policies: Reaction
Education

-1884. University Statute (1863) replaced; now tighter government control; chief appointments made by Minister of Education.
- Stress on religion; barrack-like atmosphere.
-Fees quadrupled to restrict entry to secondary and higher education.
- Church schools favoured; zemstva schools discouraged.
-1887. Decree to prevent children from humble backgrounds being 'encouraged to abandon the social environment to which they belong.'

Alexander III's domestic policies: Reaction
Russification

- 1881. Series of anti-Jewish pogroms, tacitly encouraged by the authorities.
- Over 600 decrees against Jews, eg prevented from voting in zemstva; entry to education restricted; residence restrictions tightened.
- Increased attempts to impose Russian culture on national minorities, (eg Finns, Poles, Ukrainians, Armenians, Tatars), and to deny them their own.

Alexander III's domestic policies: Reforms
Social

* Poll tax ended
* Redemption payments lowered
* Peasants Land Bank to provide cheap loans to buy land.


* Factory Legislation
* Hours, employment of women and children
restricted; inspectorate established.
* Despite government restrictions, zemstva continued to improve local areas, especially primary education.

Alexander III's domestic policies: Reforms
Economic development

- Beginning of major spurt in industrialisation, under Finance Ministers Bunge, Vyshnegradsky, Witte.
- Alexander III as a realist prepared to support industrialisation, and Witte's policy.
- Economy grew 8% in 1890s.
- Agriculture was exploited as source of export earnings; this helped cause a series of famines, especially in 1891.

Alexander III's foreign policy

* Russia kept out of war. Broadly traditionalist, cautious policy, but changes in Germany eventually forced a radical change of alliance.


1881. Conclusion of Dreikaiserbund with Austria, Germany; old Holy Alliance system.
1882. Russia estranged from Austria over Balkans; Dreikaiserbund not renewed; replaced by Reinsurance Treaty with Germany.
1883. Bismarck dismissed, and Germany did not renew Reinsurance Treaty.


1891. Loose Russo-French agreement.

* \

1893. Russia reluctantly accepted formal
French alliance.
* Russia's expansion in Asia slowed .
* 1880s onwards. Major naval building programme .

Nicholas II

- Became Tsar 1894
- Didn't want to become Tsar

Sergei Witte

- Finance minister 1892 - 1903
- Goal was to strengthen Russia's economy

Witte's economic policies

- Government became more active in developing the economy.
- Greater emphasis was placed on producing more coal, iron and steel.
- Loans were obtained from countries such as France.
- Taxes on peasants were increased to fund industrialisation.
- The Trans-Siberian Railway was built to exploit Siberia economically.
- In 1897 Witte introduced laws to restrict working hours to 11.5 a day for all workers.

Witte's economic policies:
Successes

- Coal and iron production increased.
- Between 1897 and 1900 Russia received 144 millionroubles in foreign investment.
- By 1903 the Trans-Siberian Railway was almost completed. Railway building across Russia was expanded.
- Large factories emerged in important cities such as St Petersburg and Moscow.
- Cities grew rapidly.
- Resources in Siberia were increasingly exploited.
- Economic modernisation allowed Russia to equip their armed forces with more sophisticated weaponry and compete as a world Great Power.

Witte's economic policies:
Failures

- Living conditions in the cities for the working classes were very poor.
- Strikes became more common in Russian cities.
- Increased taxes on the peasants caused widespread anger.
- Witte's reforms did not result in Russia overtaking countries such as Germany economically.
- By 1913 industry contributed only 20 per cent of national income and only 18 per cent of Russians lived in towns.
- Russia was in more debt than any other European country. In 1914 Russia owed 8 billion roubles.
- The Russian political system did not modernise and educational opportunities remained limited for the majority.
- Russia was modernising from a position that was further behind the economies of other countries.

Growth of opposition to Nicholas II:
Emancipation of labour

- Group formed in 1883
- four exiled ex-Populists met in Geneva to found the first Marxist revolutionary group
- They aimed to spread Marxism in Russia and hoped to establish a Marxist-Socialist party that would bring about a proletarian revolution

Growth of opposition to Nicholas II:
Bolsheviks

- Small, centrally controlled, highly disciplined professional revolutionaries.
- Refuse to work with other political parties and Trades Unions
- Lead the revolution on behalf of the workers - Bourgeois and proletarian revolutions could happen simultaneously (Marx, stages of history)
- Seize power as soon as possible

Growth of opposition to Nicholas II:
Mensheviks

* Co-operates with the Trades Unions and other parties
* Follow Marx's stages of history proletarian revolution to happen after the bourgeois revolution
* Russia not ready for a revolution, role of party to spread propaganda and raise the level of consciousness of the proletariat

Growth of opposition to Nicholas II:
Social revolutionaries

- The party of the peasant
- Main priority land reforms and redistribution to peasants

Russo-Japanese War

(1904-1905) War between Russia and Japan over imperial possessions. Japan emerges victorious.

Impact of Russo-Japanese War

- worst naval defeat in Russian history, humiliated militarily
- stimulated/provided backdrop to political disturbances
- Plehve assassinated by SRs after Yalu River defeats
- strengthened opposition by emboldening them and weakened autocracy

Causes of 1905 Revolution:
Long term causes

- Alienated intelligentsia, wanted moderate liberal reform, wanted constitutional monarchy
- Revolutionaries: social revolutionaries and marxists provoking unrest (worker strikes/assassinations)
- Peasant unrest due to poverty and lack of land, led to increase in peasant revolts in early 1900s
- Worker unrest due to long hours and bad conditions
- Economic slump + international monetary crisis made foreign loans harder + drop in annual growth rate from 8% to 1% in 1899

Causes of 1905 Revolution:
Government policy

- Tsarist regime: weak, repressive, no moves towards constitutional government, denied basic freedoms, no concessions to nationalities

- Witte's economic policy:
• under Witte's industrialisation policy, urban workers and peasants squeezed very hard by high indirect taxes and low wages
• Economic slump after 1900 led to high unemployment and social tension in towns
• Poor harvests in 1900 and 1902 led to starvation and violence in countryside

Causes of 1905 Revolution:
Russo-Japanese war

- Defeats on land and at sea shocked Russian public
- January 1905 - lost Port Arthur
- War caused shortages of food and fuel, high prices unemployment
- Huge upsurge of discontent as Tsar's government perceived to be incompetent

Causes of 1905 Revolution:
Bloody Sunday

Sunday 9 January 1905 Tsar's troops fired on peaceful demonstrators led by Father Gregori Gapon

1905 Revolution

- The revolution that began January 1905 with Bloody Sunday
- Soviets had control for a small period showing what the future could be like
- Army then came in and took back control
- ended with Nicholas II creating the October Manifesto.

How and why was the Tsar able to survive 1905?

* Loyalty of the army retained
* Rebels lacked unity and direction
* Concessions granted to liberals and peasants, thus dividing the opposition.

Consequences of 1905 revolution

- the state-approved violence of Bloody Sunday served as a crucial severing of the bond between the Tsar and his people
- a national duma had finally been established, bringing in a brief era of parliamentary government to Russia
- St. Petersburg Soviet was established

Stolypin

- Appointed as chief minister 1907
- played an important role in restoring order and crushing opposition after 1905, and also in introducing some reform measures that contributed to relative stability in the years leading up to WW1

Stolypin:
Reactionary counter-terror

- well-prepared to use violence to deal with opposition
- Faced with an increase in radical violence in 1907 Stolypin responded by carrying out over 1,000 death sentences
- He also put pressure on trade unions and newspapers

Stolypin:
Agricultural reform

- Stolypin was aware that beyond violent repression, reform was essential if the tsardom was to be maintained
- Stolypin attempted to get to grips with the deep-rooted problems of Russian agriculture

Stolypin reforms

- Redemption payments to the mir cancelled, giving peasants free ownership of their land and giving them the option to leave the mir and become individual landholders.
- Cheap loans offered by 'Peasants' Bank' to allow more capitalist peasants to buy strips of land from their neighbours and consolidate into larger, more efficient holdings.
- Peasants who sold their land could either become wage labourers, move to the new cities or take a government grant to populate uncultivated Siberia (leave the mir).

Stolypin reforms:
Successes

- Agricultural production increased, leading to record harvests in 1913 - though some historians claim this has more to do with the weather than reforms, and output was still low compared to Western standards.
- By 1916 24% of households in European Russia owned their own land, and more were in the process of doing so. By 1914 over 1/3 of peasants had left the mir.
- Over 1.5 million migrated to Siberia between 1907 and 1909, which helped to broaden the base of Russian agriculture.

Stolypin reforms:
Failures

- Best land was still owned by the Tsar and the gentry - and only 10% of peasants had managed to consolidate their land into a larger farm by 1914.
- Reform did not address problem of overpopulation and the 'land hunger' this generated.
- The reforms produced a growing class of alienated poor peasants
- Stolypin's attempt to construct a middle ground of 'enlightened conservatism' ended up giving him enemies on both sides of the political spectrum, conservative and radical alike

Why did Russia get involved in WW1?

- Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 turned Russia's attention to the West rather than the East.
- In 1907 France, Russia and Britain formed an alliance called the Triple Entente (meaning 'friendship') to deal with the German threat

Impact of WW1 on Russia:
Military failures

- heavy military defeats and huge death tolls led to angry and disillusioned army
- Nicholas II worsened the situation by assuming control of the Russian army at the front
- making him personally responsible for future military defeats

Impact of WW1 on Russia:
Role of Tsarina and Rasputin

Tsarina and Rasputin: left in charge of the government, these two decreased support for Tsarism further by making such a horrible job in charge: dismissing competent Ministers and replacing them with incompetent ones

Impact of WW1 on Russia:
Failure to make political reforms

- allowing the 'progressive bloc' of discontented liberals a greater role in running the country might have helped ease the pressure on Nicholas II and for Russia to have become a constitutional monarchy
- His refusal to compromise on his autocratic principles contributed importantly to his downfall in February 1917.

Impact of WW1 on Russia:
Impact of war on living conditions

- desperate suffering experienced by the Russian people as a result of WW1
- War caused huge distress, as there was a shortage of food, fuel and goods, as well as high prices, inflation and worker unemployment

Factors that led to the February Revolution, 1917

- Political problems (Tsarina and Rasputin)
- Economic problems
- Impact of WW1
- Peasant and worker discontent

February revolution events (1917)

22nd February: Factory lockout on the right bank took place.
25th February: Duma was dissolved.
27th February: Police Headquarters ransacked. Regiments support the workers. Formation of Soviet.
2nd March: The Tsar abdicated his power. The Soviet and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government for Russia.

Impact of February revolution

- After the abdication Soviets were set up everywhere.
- local committees - peasant (parish) committees, factory committees, regimental committees and battleship committees — turned the formerly passive population into radical revolutionaries
- Peasants refused to pay rents, workers demanded higher wages and soldiers and sailors refused to obey the authority of officers.

Provisional Government

The Provisional Government replaced the tsar's government that collapsed during the revolution in March 1917

Provisional government:
Problems

- The Provisional Government had to rule with the Petrograd soviet (dual government)
- did not really carry out any major reforms.
- Abolished Okhrana and press censorship
- This meant Lenin's Bolsheviks could attack the government
- tried to continue the war but the attack failed causing people to turn on government and turn to Lenin whose message was 'Peace, bread, land'.

October revolution short term causes:
Social and political problems

- Middle classes: Small number but growing and wanted to be more involved in politics
- Land and agriculture: Methods were inefficient and backwards, not enough land to go around, vast expansion of peasant population (overcrowding)
- Urban workers and industry: Around 58% were literate able to voice ideas and understand what was happening, wages low and high number of deaths from accidents and work related health issues. The industry production was very low in the start of the 19th century but increased fast and by 1914,

October revolution short term causes:
Economic problems

- Inflation: inflation increased by 400 percent
- Crisis in cities : Overcrowded + poor housing + poor living and working conditions led to social tension in Cities
- Continued impact of WW1

4 factors that meant Lenin could seize power and PG was weak

1) PG was not elected by the people, it saw itself as a temporary body, which could not make any binding long-term decisions for Russia.
2) In PG there were divisions between socialists + liberals who often blocked each others decisions.
3) The PG had only power over government affairs, real power lay in the hands of the soviets (worker's unions).
4) Government passes legislation that allowed freedom of speech, press as well as the dismantling of the secret police. Meaning political parties could criticise government and advertise freely

June offensive

- PG launched an all out offensive on Germany to put the country in a better position in the war (WW1).
- ended in disaster and PG was deeply discredited.
- Cause increased support for Bolsheviks

July days

- spontaneous uprising which consisted of 500 000 soldiers, workers and sailors rebelling in Kronstadt.
- They later marched to Petrograd to demand overthrow of PG.
- the rebellion was dismantled as PG still retained control of some loyal Russian troops.
- Damaged both Bolshevik and PG reputation

Kornilov affair

- August 1917, general Kornilov took his army and marched to Petrograd to overthrow PG. \- - Unhappy with PG for WW1 and politics
- leader of PG armed the Bolsheviks so they could help him.
- However, Kornilov's army did not reach Petrograd as some of his soldiers mutinied and railway workers sabotaged the railways.
- Caused PG to disintegrate
- Bolsheviks continued to gain support

Lenin's role:
April thesis

On 16th of April 1917, Lenin held a speech called the April Theses.
The speech called for :
1)World wide socialist revolution
2) Land reform to peasants
3) immediate end to WW1
4) immediate end to cooperation with PG
5) Urged Soviets to take power.
- Used phrases such as "bread, peace and Land" to attract workers
- Went against Marx and said Russia was ready for revolution
- Without Lenin and the speech Russia wouldn't have been ready for war

Role of Trotsky in executing the revolution

- elected Chairman of Petrograd Soviets in 1917 meaning lots of control
- used his position as Chairman to claim that the Bolsheviks were seizing power in the name of the Soviets (workers liked this)
- It was not until Lenin closed down the new parliament that workers realized that they had been fooled.
- played a key role in setting up and organizing the red army, as well as the actual take over of power.
- also persuaded Lenin to wait until october to conduct the revolution, when Bolsheviks had firmly established their power in the Soviets. \- - Trotsky was as also an excellent orator and helped to inspire the masses.

Consolidation of new Soviet state:
Getting new government on its feet (solution and response)

- Set up sovnarkom to exclude Mensheviks and SRs, and ruled by decree without Soviet support.
- Lenin gave the workers what they wanted
- Worked fairly effectively, given the circumstances.

Consolidation of new Soviet state:
Land ownership (solution and response)

- Land decree - allowed peasants to take over the estates of the gentry without compensation. Land belonged to 'the people', and could no longer be bought, sold or rented.
- Satisfied peasants, but went against the Bolsheviks' idea that all the land actually belonged to the state

Consolidation of new Soviet state:
Running industry (solution and response)

- Workers' control decree - gave factory committees right to control production and supervise management.
- In many places workers actually went further and took direct management control, but Bolsheviks couldn't resist this pressure for reform.

Consolidation of new Soviet state:
Opposition (solution and response)

- Opposition press shut down; political opponents were arrested; Cheka (secret police) established; class warfare encouraged as means of terrorising the middle class.
- Success - opposition weak and uncoordinated.

Consolidation of new Soviet state:
Peace with Germany (solution and response)

- Lenin knew he needed peace - pledge in rise to power, and German troops progressing.
- Treaty of Brest Litovsk:
- 1/6 of population
- 27% of farm land
- 26% of railway lines
- 74% of iron ore and coal reserves
- Horrified patriots across classes and encouraged them to oppose the Bolsheviks.
- Caused splits in the Bolshevik party - as they thought this allowed Germany to survive as an imperial power.
- Left SRs left the sovnarkom, leaving the Bolsheviks truly alone.

How did the Bolsheviks survive the first few months in power?

- The Bolshevik government was in a fragile condition in the first few months, facing strikes and protests from other socialists over one-party rule.
- There were divisions within the party over a proposed socialist coalition
- Lenin always intended to rule on his own and asserted this in his own party and in government.
- Lenin's early policies had to be modified in response to pressures from the masses.
- The Bolsheviks crushed opposition and developed forces of terror and coercion, especially the Cheka.
- Lenin persuaded the Bolsheviks to sign the unfavourable Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

The causes of the Russian Civil War

- July 1918 Russia had become a one-party state dominated by Lenin and the Communist Party. Other parties supported the Whites, and wished to remove the Communists from power.
- Some wanted Tsarism back
- Britain and France wanted Russia to stay in the war and the Japanese wanted to expand their territory and influence.
- Foreign countries such as Britain and France sent troops to Russia and provided the Whites with supplies, which allowed the Civil War to develop in 1918.
- The Czech Legion in 1917 was created out of Austro-Hungarian prisoners consisted of 40,000 men and opposed the Red Army.
- Lenin gave the non-Russian minorities the rights of self-determination, including the right to become independent.
- Lenin was not prepared to see the population and resources of the minority areas lost to the Bolshevik state.
- Many Russians opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
- The Bolsheviks started to clash with the peasantry. Lenin authorised the forcible collection of grain stocks from the peasants to feed the cities and the Red Army. Peasants avoided conscription and took steps to hide their grain.

How did the Bolsheviks win the Civil War?

- The Civil War was very complex with many forces operating over a large territory. very confusing not clearly defined
- White forces made big gains in 1918 to 1919 but by October 1919 Bolsheviks turned the tide, picking off White armies one by one, and thereafter pushed the Whites back until their final defeat at the end of 1920.
- The Reds were in a better position geographically, and had better organisation, better communications and a clear line of command.
- Trotsky helped by transforming the Red army using his organisational abilities
- The Whites lacked good leadership, unity and co-ordination between armies during campaigns.
- The Whites lacked support from the peasants and national minorities because of their reactionary policies.
- Lenin adopted War Communism to meet the needs of the army and to conduct a civil war on the 'internal front'.
- Terror was an essential component of this internal civil war to defeat counter-revolution.
- Communists saw War Communism as the route to socialism.
- Most people's experience of War Communism was that it was a terrible time of privation and chaos.

5 aspects of war communism

1. All factories with more than ten workers were nationalised. A government body called Vesenkha decided exactly what each industry should produce.
2. All workers were under government control. There was military discipline in the factories, including the death penalty for strikers. The unemployed were made to join 'Labour Armies', cutting trees or building roads, for example.
3. Private trading was banned. Peasants had to give their surplus food to the government: they could not sell it for profit.
4. The government allowed money to lose its value through inflation. It abolished rents, railway fares, postal charges and many other money payments. In place of money, people were encouraged to barter.
5. In cities food was strictly rationed.

Success of war communism

the Red Army was kept supplied with food and weapons and won the Civil War in 1920.

Failures of war communism

- It failed to share Russia's wealth equally.
- In the countryside, many peasants decided that there was no point in growing more food than they needed for themselves.
- So in 1919 the peasants started to sow less grain and breed fewer animals.
- The result was a food shortage in 1920 and then a terrible famine in 1921.
- Starvation, cold weather and disease killed a total of seven million Russians.

New economic policy

- Grain requisitioning abolished
- Small business reopened
- Ban on private trade removed
- State control of heavy industry e.g. coal, steel and oil

Aims of Lenin's foreign policy (4)

- To spread communism in Europe
- Economic considerations
- To gain international recognition
- Security considerations