Lenin

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  • Lenin 1918-1928
    • Opposition
      • The Civil War
        • Reds
          • Bolsheviks - gained support from the left
        • Whites
          • Officers from tsarist army, land owners and ruling classes - uncoordinated, often fight each other
            • Included anti-Bolsheviks
          • Didn't appeal to peasantry, refused to accept ethnic minorities, indisciple
        • Greens
          • peasant armies - some for, some against Bolsheviks.
          • More concerned with protecting own interests e.g. Ukrainians fought for independence
        • Trotsky developed effective defence and ideology - exploited railways
          • Clear ideology of class war and organisation- defenders of Revolution
      • Ending WW1
        • Bret-Litovsk Treaty signed by Trotsky Dec 1917
        • Brest-Litovsk seen as shameful in Russia
          • Lost large amountd of territory and resources - 50%
          • Exacerbated grain shortage
          • Resulted in Civil War - anti-Bolshevik factions emerged
      • Terror
        • Cheka active - central to Bolshevik regime
        • Method of political control for regime - Red Terror
        • Class warfare on Kulaks - targets for executions
          • Peasants revolted, Bolshevik officials killed - unrest in countryside
            • Labour camps opened for hostile peasants and 'counter-revolutionaries' - hard to define term
          • Peasants left starving due to requisitioning
        • SRs, anarchists, tsar and family executed
          • Estimated 500,000 deaths - to intimidate people into compliance
    • Policies
      • War Communism
        • Due to rapid deterioration of economy 1918
        • Grain requisitioning by Red Guard
        • Industry brought under state control - private trade banned
          • Black market developed to provide consumer goods
          • Labour discipline enforced - absenteeism fines etc
        • Rationing on class based system - bourgeouisie given least
        • Path to socialist state = got support from other Bolsheviks = continued after war
      • NEP
        • Why was it brought in?
          • Famine, disease, revolt (118 in Feb 1921) - weak transport system, shortage of raw materials = factory closures, low grain production
          • Peasants' hostility e.g. Tambov uprising 1920 - food demonstrations, martial law imposed
          • Worker strikes supported by Konstradt uprising 1921 - 10,000 sailors killed - argument for change in policy
          • Divisions in B party on policy
        • Terms
          • Requisitioning abolished - could sell for profit = more capitalistic
          • Private trading allowed, small businesses reopened = betrayal to Bolshevik ideology
            • State controlled large heavy industry
        • Economic concessions = political tightening up
          • 'ban on factions' restored discipline in party and crushed opposition
            • SRs and Mensheviks made illegal
              • Show trials and arrests, death penalty, censorship
          • Purge of party to cleanse - 22,000 expelled 1921
          • Attack on religion and NEP men
        • Scissors Crisis but gov took action = recovery
          • Crime flourished, corruption and bribery due to NEP men's wealth
        • Not enough grain produced - only 1/4 of 1913 levels - reluctant to sell to gov due to low prices. Backward tech still - small plots of land
          • Unemployment rose, wages low, poor housing
          • Grain crisis 1927 = end of NEP & return of requisitioning
    • Significance of Lenin
      • Integral
        • Personality - united people with policy, prestige, pragmatic, charismatic
        • Ideology- party founder, Marxism - Leninism, ruthless - crushed opposition
        • Role in Oct Rev - Pressured BCC into revolution= revered
        • Critical interventions - April Theses, Oct Rev, Brest Litovsk, NEP
      • Not Integral
        • Cult of Lenin -exaggerates his role
          • Otherfactors in B rise to power - economic conditions 1917, Kornilov affair, July offensive failure & WW1
        • Only key interventions - was absent up until 1917
        • Marxist historian view - rev inevitable under Tsar
          • Lenin not an 'irreplaceable colossus'- this is only an illusion
    • Social and Cultural Developments1918-28
      • Women and Family
        • Aimed for equality and liberation e.g. abortion and divorce easier
        • But domestic violence, **** rose - clashed w/ traditional views. Orphans, unemployment
        • Worked 8 hour day and 5 hour domestic day
      • Education
        • Universal schooling abandoned under NEP
        • Indoctrination
      • Youth Organisations
        • Pioneers and Komsomol
        • To instil communist values and social contorl
        • Komsomol spread propaganda and attacked churches
      • Religion
        • Aggressively atheist regime - 1922 launched attack on church
        • Religion as bourgeouisie - but 50% still believe in God 1927
        • Over 8000 priests killed
      • Propaganda and Culture
        • 'art for the masses' - central to regime - artists drew propaganda for Bs
        • Agitprop trains, posters, statues erected - Marxist principles and slogans emphasised
        • Ritual festivals e.g. reenactment of storming of winter palace annually
        • Cinema e.g. Eisenstein's 'OCtober'

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