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EIT Week 11- The Russian Revolution and Civil War (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk…
EIT Week 11- The Russian Revolution and Civil War
Revolution
Civil War, 1917-1921
Long-Term Factors
James Davies
- all revolutions happen after a period of sustained improvement is followed by one of sharp reversal
Workers- small number but growing- concentrated in large industries- dangerous and bad working conditions
Peasantry- rent tax- land hunger- short-term decline in living standards
Intelligentsia- teachers, students, writers- excluded from power- avid for change and modernisation
Nationalities- diversity across empire- resistance to Russification (Alexander III, 1881-94)
The Russian Empire was the least developed great power in Europe by 1914 and still largely agricultural. Marxists therefore considered it the least likely place for the establishment of socialism
Short-Term Factors
lack of foreign expertise and investment- breakdown or railways and industries- shortages at front and home front- army lacks supplies= defeats
dual power= provisional government vs soviets- workers take over factories- peasants take over land
mobilisation of 50 million men- labour shortages= food shortages- inflation- hoarding= more shortages
The Revolution of 1905 was a liberal revolution and brought Russia a central, elected parliament and a rudimentary constitution
Tsar Nicholas sacked most of his ministers when they urged him not to takeover command of the army
Collapse of Tsarist authority in Feb 1917 caught most people by surprise- not least Lenin who was sent back to Russia by Germans
Initially popular, the Provisional Government lost support when it continued to prosecute the war in the east- with disastrous results
Lenin convinced Bolsheviks not to cooperate with Provisional Government
Despite subsequent claims, recent historical research has suggested the Bolshevik ‘seizure of power’ was far more chaotic and contingent than the Bolsheviks and their detractors claim
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 1918
Russian soldiers ordered to stop fighting Germans
Formal ceasefire- Dec 1917
'Without annexations and without indemnities'
Treaty- 3 March 1918
'A just and democratic peace'
Territorial losses- part of Poland- part of the Caucasus and Turkey- Finland, Georgia and Ukraine independent
Concessions to Germany- 6 billion marks- German holdings in Russia exempt from nationalism
August 1918- Lenin wounded by a Social Revolutionary- Lenin had betrayed the Revolution
Bolsheviks reintroduce the death penalty
Peasants resisting requisitioning squads
Anti-Bolshevik 'Provisional Governments'
Whites- supporters of Nicholas II, Monarchists, Democrats
Building the Red Army
- Trotsky's task- directed war from an armoured train- recruited 48,000 Tsarist officers from Summer 1918- political commissars to control and educate- CHEKA forced conscription
Anti-Bolsheviks, the 'Whites'
- White Army was loose amalgamation of Anti-Bolshevik forces- former Imperial army officers and soldiers- often opposed Tsarism- Bolsheviks denied them religious and cultural autonomy- peasant revolts
Allied interventionists objected to Bolshevik withdrawal from WW1, confiscation of Allied property- refusal to pay loans made to Tsarist government- concern about welfare of Tsar, and CHEKA activities