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Lenin (Dealing with Opposition (Execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his…

- - - - Rural areas hard to deal with - few peasants were Bolshevik supporters
  - - - Bolshevik opponents were waiting to see what would happen in the 12th November elections for the Constituent Assembly
      - most people did not expect the new government to last long because of the scale of the problems it faced
        
        Economic crisis - by Nov 1917 prices 1000% higher than they had been in 1914. Wages risen slightly but not enough to cover this
        
        opposition from other political groups
        
        the war (by late 1917)
  - - - this would involve twisting the principles of Communism (e.g. creation of a dictatorial wartime government)
      - December 1917, set up Checka (secret police)
- - - - junior officials willing to support Bolsheviks were promoted to positions of real power
        
        they were too inexperienced - therefore poor quality bureaucracy
        
        very obedient
    - - first measure was to close down opposition newspapers
      - the Kadet Party did well at Constituent Assembly elections
        
        denounced and out-landed
        
        leading Kadets arrested
        
        2 brutally beaten to death by Bolshevik sailors
        
        then leading right with Socialist revolutionaries (SRs) and Mensheviks were arrested - before end of 1917
        
        expelled 150,000 members of the Communist Party who were ex-Mensheviks and SRs
      - political terror
      - all other parties were banned
        
        despite the fact that the Mensheviks and SRs had fought with the Red Army during the war
    - - 175 seats vs 410 seats for SRs
        
        15 out of 175 seats
      - led Lenin to destroy the Constitution Assembly after 1 day - in Jan 1918
        
        justified its Communism being a higher unelectable version of democracy
        
        Lenin - 'the constituent assembly is the highest expression of the political ideals of bourgeois society, which are no longer necessary in a socialist state'
      - protestors peacefully demonstrating for the CA were shot by pro-Lenin soldiers
        
        no changes - exactly the same as tsar with Bloody Sunday
    - - the main instrument of terror
      - provided dependable security
      - controlled the Red Guard and military units
      - effective mechanism for dealing with any opposition
    - - Mensheviks and right-wing SRs didn't want to get involved in organised violence
        
        aware of dangers of civil war
      - still had hopes for Constituent Assembly
      - didn't expect Bolsheviks to survive
  - - - 34 SR leaders condemned as terrorits
      - show trials did not exist just during Stalins rule
      - many accused were already in jail when their alleged crimes had been committed
        
        flawed
        
        massively oppressive judicial system
    - - repression became more systematic
      - in Spring 1922, dozens of Russian writers and scholars deported to convince intelligentsia it wasn't a good idea to criticise the government
      - in 1922, pre-publication censorship introduced
        
        books, articles, poems and other writings had to be submitted to the government before they could be published
    - - Church een as a rival to their power - enjoying a revival at the beginning of NEP
      - previously attacks were mainly propaganda
      - 1921 Union of Militant Godless established
        
        to challenge the church more directly
      - 1922 - orders sent out to strip Churches of their precious items
        
        ostensibly to help famine victime
        
        clergy and local people tried to protect churches - violent clashes
        
        death penalties given to Russian Orthodox Church leaders
        
        thousands of priests imprisoned
    - - Tambov region swamped by Red Army in 1922
      - against those who stages revolts against the government under War Communism
      - whole rebel villages destroyed in a brutal campaign
      - villages who supported Reds were rewarded with:
        
        salt
        
        a vital commodity because needed for food preservation
        
        manufactured goods
        
        were also fed propaganda about benefits NEP would bring
  - - - June onwards SRs arrested at large, along with Mensheviks, Cadets
        
        the start of purges
      - this event prompted the Red Terror but it was simply an intensification of what was already happening
      - this could have been fabricated to justify Lenin's Red Terror
      - would make Lenin look like he'd be willing to die for his cause
        
        the beginning of the cult of personality
    - - economic plight
      - low food rations
      - state violence
      - calls for
        
        free press
        
        Soviet elections
        
        restoration of CA
        
        overthrow of Sovnarkom
    - - anarchists who rejected authoritarian control of gov.
      - Left with SRs who protested Treaty of Brest-Litvosk
      - July 1918 shot Geman ambassador
        
        to wreck Russian relationship with Germany
      - captured Dzerzhinsky (head of Checka) in May
      - 'shot' Lenin in August 1918
      - 2 head Bolshevik Party Leaders killed
    - - the systematic use of terror to deal with opposition
  - - - didn't agree with how he took power (Mensheviks)
  - - - not just Stalin terrorising his people
  - - - real figure more like 300,000
    - - real purpose to terrify all hostile social groups
    - - priests
      - judges
      - traders
      - children (55 of prison population in Moscow in 1920)
      - all guilty of 'bourgeois provocation' / counter-revolution
- - - - February-March 1921
      - Sailors at Kronstadt naval base revolted against Communist party
      - sailors protested that the Communists had broken all their promises
      - Rebellion crushed by Red Army
      - worried Communists
        
        Kronstadt sailors had been very loyal supporters throughout the civil war
    - - peasants in Tambov rebelled against the government
      - attacked and robbed grain convoys
  - - - occurred in 77% of Russia's large and medium-sized factories during 1920
- - - - by 1921, Lenin realised that Russia would be the only Communist country for a while
        
        Communist revolutions had failed in Germany and Hungary 1919-1920
    - - dictatorship of communists would have to continue indefinitely
- - - - limited control - only major policy was to regulate national economy and railways, cancelled debts owed the foreign governments
- - - - handed over the land of the crown, church and aristocracy to the peasants
      - legalised wha the peasants had already done
      - some Bolsheviks angry - principles of Communism stated that factors of production should belong to the state
      - Lenin's view was accepted - 300,000 Bolsheviks couldn't stay in power while denying 125 million peasants their land
      - February 1918, Bolshevik government passed a decree stating the land belonged to the state - didn't enforce this
    - - Bolsheviks recognised and legalised what had already been done
      - industrial workers had already seized control of the factories
    - - economic policy that the Bolsheviks adopted October 1917 - June 1918
      - improvised at this time - built off existing structures
      - In Dec 1917 etablished Vesenkha - the Supreme Council of the National Economy - to regulate the national economy
        
        had limited control
        
        it's only major policy was that it nationalised the banks and railways, and cancelled debts owed to foreign governments
      - Lenin had been theoretical about long term economic goals
    - - all non-Russian people had the right to break away from the former Russian-Empire
      - Bolsheviks would later use the Red Army to force the Ukraine and Georgia into the USSR despite this decree
      - despite these promises, after their win in the Civil War, the Red Army captured these areas and imposed Communist governments on them
        
        turning them into Soviet Socialist Republics
        
        in theory, each Republic had its own government which could make decisions about health, education ect. without reference to Moscow
        
        in economic policy, each Republic acted under the instructions of local Commissars who followed orders from Moscow
        
        Foreign and defence policy were directed entirely from Moscow by All Union-Commissars
    - - Bolsheviks called for a 'just democratic peace' between all countries participating in the war, without land transfers or financial indemnities
      - Lenin knew harsh terms would have to be accepted, but at least then the Bolsheviks could back to consolidating their power
      - Trotsky (Commissar for Foreign Affairs)
        
        favoured making peace talks in public
        
        so German public could see how greedy their government was
        
        so that Germany could have its own Communist revolution
        
        his delaying tactics - 'neither peace, nor war' irritated Germans
        
        who then launched a new offensive against Russians in Feb 1918
      - Armistice was agreed on 22nd November 1917
      - peace talks at Brest-Litovsk began in December 1917
    - - Main terms:
        
        Russia was to lose
        
        33% of its population
        
        33% of its arable land
        
        Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, the Ukraine and Georgia
        
        Russia had to pay an indemnity of 6000 million marks
        
        Baltic states and Poland were given their independence
        
        however, in 1921 Russia regained the Ukraine and Georgi
      - signed 3rd March 1918
        
        after Germany's defeat in 1918
        
        8th March, Lenin changed name of Bolsheviks to Communist Party
        
        11th March, Lenin moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow
      - why was it accepted?
        
        Lenin favoured accepting demands because:
        
        Russia was too weak to continue the war
        
        Peace was necessary to consolidate power and sort out Russia's problems
        
        he suspected that Communism would break out in Germany and other countries - therefore, debts could be cancelled
      - Public response
        
        left SRs resigned from Sovnarkom in protest of the harsh treaty
        
        Bolsheviks now had massive control as they were left in control
    - - Bolsheviks had criticised the Prov. Gov. for delaying elections of the Constituent Assmebly
      - some Bolsheviks favoured a broad coalition of parties
      - Lenin allowed elections to go ahead on 12th Nov
        
        he correctly anticipated that the Bolsheviks would not do well
    - - 5th Jan, Constituent Assembly met and elected the leader of the Right SRs (Victor Chernov) as its President
        
        Bolsheviks were a minority and so withdrew
      - Lenin sent the Red Guard to close down the assembly
        
        he announced that the Assembly was to be permanently closed
      - Lenin was opposed to Western ideas of democracy
        
        which the Constituent Assembly symbolised
        
        instead he believe in the need for a dictatorship of the Bolshevik party to rule on behalf of the working class (until they themselves were capable of leading)
      - Trotsky - 'We have trampled under foot the principles of democracy for the sake of the loftier principles of a social revolution
      - Lenin's actions were criticised by foreign German socialists
        
        such as Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht
      - this led to a Civil war which lasted until late 1920
    - - Bolsheviks set up Cheka in December 1917
      - led by Felix Dzerzhinsky
- - - - this discipline abolished the 1917 decree
      - Trotsky wished to tighten control and create a labour army under military discipline
        
        Lenin overruled him
    - - most had been placed under workers' control in the months after the revolution - usually with disastrous results
      - return to one-man management in place of worker's councils
    - - Food Brigades sent out from towns to extract grain from peasantry
      - where necessary the Red Army and Cheka were used
      - in practice requisition was the straightforward theft of grain
      - Rationing introduced
        
        biggest rations went to Red Army soldiers and workers in heavy industry
        
        middle amounts - civil servants and workers in light industry
        
        bottom of the scale - capitalists, landlords and middle class
        
        Zinoviev: they were given 'just enough bread so as to not forget the smell of it
    - - wages instead paid in food and fuel, trade was by barter
  - - - Vesenkha had been formed in December 1917
  - - - they reduce their sowing
        
        leading to terrible food shortage
        
        food shortages led to large-scale migration from cities
        
        between 1917 and 1920 urban population fell by 33%
    - - by 1921 grain harvest was 50% of its 1913 level
      - industrial production had fallen to 205 of the 1913 level
      - economic crisis equally bad in white controlled areas
    - - 60% of food
      - 70% of shoes
- - - - believed Lenin would do this
  - - - rather than the provisional government's slow ideal to form a constituent assembly
  - - - made them stand out