After getting to power, Lenin had to ensure he carried out what was promised (Peace, Bread and Land).
Whilst in power he:
• Set up the Council of Peoples Commissars
• Asked for peace with Germany
• Peasants were given the Tsar’s and the Church’s land
• Factories and industries were put into the hands of the workers
• Bolsheviks dealt ruthlessly with their opponents
Constituent Assembly
Set up late 1917, with the promise of free elections. Socialist Revolutionaries (who were peasant based) got the majority vote when the Assembly open on January 1918. Lenin send Red Guards to close down the Assembly. After brief protests (put down by the Red Guard), the Constituent Assembly was forgotten. Lenin passed any decision using the Congress of Soviets as they contained a Bolshevik majority.
Making Peace
Trotsky was put in charge of negotiating the peace treaty. Trotsky was ordered to spin out the treaty for as long as possible in the hope that a socialist revolution would break out in Germany, as it did in Russia. However this wasn’t happening and Germany started to advance again, so Lenin was forced into agreeing to the terms of the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk in March 1918. Russia lost:
• 34% of its population
• 32% of its agricultural land
• 54% of its Industry
• 26% of its railways
• 89% of its coalmines
• 300 million gold roubles as a fine
This is an example of Lenin’s single-mindedness. He sacrificed all of this in order to safeguard the revolution. However he may have the foresight to know he would get it all back when Germany lost.
Civil War
Lenin set up a secret police force called the Cheka to crush his opponents. By the end of 1918, various anti-Bolshevik groups formed in attempt to crush the Bolsheviks. The whites included:
• SR’s
• Mensheviks
• Supporters if the Tsar
• Landlords and Capitalists who had lost money/land in the revolution
• The Czech Legion (former prisoners of war)
They were also supported by foreign troops from the USA, Japan, France and Britain with the purpose of forcing Russia back into the war against Germany. The Bolshevik stronghold was in western Russia but much of the rest of the country was sympathetic to the SR’s. In March 1918, the Czech Legion seized control of a large section of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The three generals led the three white armies into Bolshevik-controlled western Russia:
• General Yudenlich
• General Denikin
• Admiral Kolchak
Trotsky responded to this by creating an army of over 300,000 men led by former Tsarist officers. Trotsky ensured their loyalty by holding their families hostage and appointing political commissars to watch over them. The Cheka ensured nobody in Bolshevik territories cooperated with the Whites. There were many beatings, hangings and shootings of opponents and suspects which became known as the “Red Terror”. In July 1918 the Tsar and his family were murdered in order to avoid the Tsar becoming leader of the Whites. The peasants suffered most in the war as they were in the areas where the fighting took place.
Through harsh discipline and brilliant leadership, Trotsky manage to defeat the white forces one by one. The whites were not really a strong alliance and their armies were unable to work together. Bolsheviks were securely in control of Russia by 1921.
Why did the Bolsheviks win?
Reds:
• United and disciplined
• Brilliantly led by Trotsky
• Made sure their towns and armies were fed by forcing peasants to hand over food and by rationing supplies
• Took over the factories of Moscow and Petrograd in order to be able to supply their armies with equipment and ammunition
• Red Terror made sure the population was kept under strict control
• Propaganda was utilised in order to show the atrocities done by the Whites
• Troops could be quickly moved using train
Whites:
• Were not united
• Made up of different groups, with different aims
• Widely spread and therefore unable to coordinate campaigns
• Limited support from the Russian populations
• Peasants did not especially like the Reds, but preferred them to the Whites
New Economic Policy:
War communism:
Refers to the harsh economic measured imposed by the Reds during the Civil War. Two main aims were:
• Put communist theories into practise by distributing wealth amongst the Russian people
• Help the civil war by keeping the towns and the Red Army supplied with Food and weapons.
This was done by:
• All large factories taken over by the government
• Production planned and organised by the government
• Discipline for workers was strict and strikers could be shot
• Peasants forced to hand surplus food to the government or would be shot
• Food was rationed
• Free enterprise became illegal – all production and trade was controlled by the state
War communism managed to win the war but it also caused terrible hardship. The peasants refused to co-operate in producing more food as it would be removed from them by the government. This led to food shortages and combined with the poor weather from 1920 to 1921 caused a terrible famine where 7 million people died.
The policy of war communism led to a mutiny at the Kronstadt naval base in February 1921. The Red Army put down the uprising and Lenin ditched War Communism. This was needed as the Kronstadt sailors were some of the strongest supporters of Lenin and Bolshevism. Thousands of the sailors were killed.
New Economic Policy:
Aspects of capitalism were brought back for certain sections of Russian society. Peasants were allowed to sell surplus grain for profit and would pay tax on what they produced as opposed to giving some on it to the government.
Small factories were handed back into private ownership and private trading of small goods were permitted. Lenin made it clear that NEP was temporary and that heavy industry (coal, oil and steel) would remain under the state’s control. It seemed like a betrayal of communism. It however was temporary and working and food production in particular rose steeply.
Lenin’s death (1924)
The leader would be the one who showed the most power within the party. Kamanev and Zinoview were contenders, who played an important part in the revolution of 1917. Bukharin was also a contender who favoured the NEP and wanted to gradually introduce Communism to the USSR.
Why Trotsky should have won:
• Brilliant speaker and writer
• Party’s best political thinker, after Lenin
• He had organised the 1917 revolution
• Won the Civil War
• Negotiated peace with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
• He was however arrogant and offended senior party members
• He failed to take the opposition seriously
• Made little effort to build up any support in the ranks of the party
• He frightened many people in the USSR as he wanted to spread permanent revolution across the globe and made a communist world. They were worried Trotsky would involve the USSR in new conflict.
Trotsky was ill with a malaria-like infection during 1923. He was also tricked by Stalin to missing Lenin’s funeral. Trotsky didn’t appear and Stalin appeared to be a chief mourner and Lenin’s closest friend.
How did Stalin win?
• Tried to associate himself with Lenin wherever possible
• He took on many boring but important jobs within the party such as Commissar for Nationalities and General Secretary. These positions were used to put his own supporters into important positions and put his opponents in remote postings
• He was clever. Once took Bukharin’s side in the debate of NEP to get rid of Trotsky. Once Trotsky was eliminated, he switched sides, turned on Bukharin and used the arguments Trotsky used
• Stalin’s policies had greater support than Trotsky’s. Such as “Socialism in One Country” rather than worldwide communism
• He also appeared a straight forward Georgian peasant, making him more of a man of the people and therefore seemed to understand the people’s feelings
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