KQ4: Consolidating Bolshevik power

What were the problems of the contituent assembly elections?

• Bolsheviks were de facto not de jure

• Lenin determined to not allow elections to undermine Bolshevik’s newly-won power.

• October events had come too late to prevent elections to All-Russian Constituent Assembly from going ahead as planned in November.

• Results = Bolsheviks only had 24% of the vote overall and ¼ of seats in assembly.

• Bolsheviks outvoted 2:1 by SRs.

Bolshevik closing of constituent assembly

• lenin tried to postpone aelections

• members required to have credentials approved by bol-controlled election commission

• 5 Jan 1918 - constituent assembly oponed

  • 50,000 anti-Bol protests

  • Bols opened fire, killed 10

• CA forcibly disbanded after 1 day

Problem of negotiating end to war

• Late 1917 – forces camped deep inside Russian territory. Russian army had disintegrated as a fighting force – no real barrier against further German advances. Russia wide open to German invasion.

• Ending war = crucial

• Lenin had promised peace – needed to deliver on this retain credibility.

• wanted to be free to concentrate on overcoming the Bolsheviks’ internal enemies.

• Trotsky and Lenin disagreed on the issue of war with Germany

• Lenin wanted immediate peace – Russia’s military exhaustion made it impossible for it to fight successfully (pointless to fight).

• Trotsky wanted to delay - no realistic chance of successfully continuing military struggle against Germany, but hoped in a short time German armies would collapse on Western Front and revolution would follow in Germany. Peace talks to be protracted affair.

What happened with treaty of Brest-Litovsk

• cease-fire agreed betwe Rus + Germany

• loss of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, The Ukraine + parts of Arminia

What did land lost in Brest-litovsk contain

• 26% of rus. population

• 27% of arable land

• 74% of coal/iron ore

Who in the bolshevik party rejected the terms of B-L?

• left wing Bols led by Bukharin

• advocated for ‘revolutionary war’ and guerilla activity

Lenin view on B-L

• realistic

• urged acceptance of Germany’s terms

• threatened to resign from sovnarkom if wishes not met

• B-L signed March 1918

Trotsky view on B-L

• ‘neither war nor peace’

• declare war over but refuse to sign treaty

SR view on B-L

• left srs lose areas they are strongest

• storm out of sovnarkom

• cw starts in earnest

Problem of internal enemies

• When Bols took power, many other political parties still existed = internal threats.

• included Liberals, moderate socialists, and others who opposed the Oct Rev

• Middle‑class liberals opposed Bolshevik rule from the start.

• Right SRs formed the Committee for the Salvation of the Revolution in late 1917.

• By end of 1917, upper‑class conservatives and army officers were gathering in south‑eastern European Russia to organise counter‑revolution.

• Minority nationalities also rejected Bolshevik authority. After October 1917, Finland, Estonia, and Ukraine declared independence.

• Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia followed in early 1918.

• Poland and Lithuania, occupied by Germany during the war, gained independence after B-L (unpopular , growing sense of insecurity generally

• sumer 1918 - extremist left Srs reverted to assasination used in tsarist era (inc head of Petrograd Cheka)

Formation of Cheka

• political police force within weeks of seixing Petrograd

• Dec 1917- sovnarkom decree defined pupose → supression of counter revn + sabotage

• 1921 → 150,000 cheka members

• ‘my powers are such that i can shoot anybody’ provincial leader

• accountable only to sovnarkom

• reputation for savagery (punishment w/o trial, execution on spot)

• leader = Dzerhinksy

Attack on Bolshevik opponents

• Bols = agressively intolerant of opposition

• decree on the press shuts down newspapers

• Kadets outlawed Nov 1917, leaders imprionsed

• 1918, middle class outlawed

• mid 1918, mens + SRs expelled from soviets

Red Terror

• targeted Bourgeois ‘wreckers’ in propaganda

  • victims actually came from varying backgrounds

  • NII +fam murdered by chekists July 1918

• victims scalped, crucified, boiled

• at least 10,000 deaths 1917 -23

• Cheka + successor GPU = 200,000

• white terror as well

Economic problems

• Inherited economy in dire condition. War against Germany and Austria had brought Russia to economic collapse: industrial production was 2/3 of 1914 level, massive inflation, unemployment rising, productivity falling.

• Transportation system was broken - 13 million tonnes of grain short of nation’s needs

• Food crisis by ceding Ukraine to Germany (Russia’s richest grain-producing region).

• Needed to meet expectations of workers and peasants of addressing their grievances, to keep their support.