The Civil War and Lenin

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  • Created by: TaylorYS
  • Created on: 07-06-19 12:37
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  • The Civil War and Lenin
    • The Bolsheviks in Power
      • Distribution of Power
        • October Revolution, though framed as All Power to the Soviet, was in fact a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks
        • The Bolsheviks were in a position to make up their own rules
      • Lenin's Decrees
        • Decree on Peace
          • Appeal to warring nations for peace without annexations
          • Bolsheviks needed to make peace with Germany to survive
        • Decree on Land
          • Private ownership of land abolished
          • Mineral wealth was for exclusive state use
          • High level science land turned over to the state
        • Decree on Worker's Control
          • Accepted workers' takeover of factories, but instructed strict order and discipline
        • Vesenkha
          • Nationalised banks and railways
          • Cancelled foreign debts
          • Improved transport systems
        • Decree on Nationalisation
          • Brought practically all major industrial enterprises in Russia into central government control
    • Constituent Assembly
      • All-Russian Constituent Assembly went ahead in November as planned
        • Bolsheviks were outvoted by the SRs nearly 2 to 1
        • Bolsheviks only won 24% of total vote
          • Gained barely a quarter of the seats
      • Dissolution by Lenin
        • Originally supported it to weaken the PG's authority
        • Lenin was against democracy and compromise
          • After 1 day's session, the assembly was dissolved at gunpoint by the Red Guards
            • Resistance was futile and there were no democratic bodies in Russia for another 70 years
            • Lenin gave the reason that the people's will had been asserted in October, the assembly was not needed
              • Lenin was always prepared to back up his ideas with force
        • The war and widespread opposition meant Bolshevik position was precarious
          • Lenin was unphased, maintaining that this precarious position required stern measures
        • Reaction
          • Caused unease within the Bolshevik party
          • Foreign socialists and communists complained massively
          • Lenin was unphased, maintaining that this precarious position required stern measures
    • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
      • Views
        • Lenin
          • Impossible to fight on due to military exhaustion
          • German loss = Russia regain occupied land
          • Germany continued to finance the Bolsheviks after October, so a settlement was in their best interests
          • Reasons for signing:
            • "Russia can offer no physical resistance because she is materially exhausted by three years of war"
            • Called those willing to fight on 'romanticists'
            • Russia would soon be in a position to reclaim lost territories
        • Trotsky
          • Understood that Russia had no chance of a successful war, but hoped for revolution in Germany following failures on the Western Front
          • Wanted peace talks to be protracted to take advantage of Austro-German mutinies
      • Terms
        • Large amount of territory containing Russia's major grain source was ceded to the Germans
        • 386,000 square miles of land lost, containing 45 million population
        • 3 billion roubles in war reparations
      • Left Communists
        • Condemned the signing
        • Lenin's insistence on party loyalty persuaded them to reluctantly accept
          • German collapse on the Western Front made the terms essentially meaningless, and Lenin's gamble paid off
            • Strengthened Lenin's hold of the party, and left SRs were expelled and outlawed
    • Russian Civil War
      • Participants
        • Reds
          • The Bolsheviks
            • The Workers and Peasants Red Army (Kronstadt Sailors, Red Guards, volunteering workers and imperial army soliders)
          • Aims
            • To stay in power
        • Whites
          • Liberals, former Tsarists, Nationalists, Separatists, SRs and other moderate socialists
          • Aims
            • Few wanted the Tsar back
            • Most wanted military dictatorship to defeat the Bolsheviks
            • Others wanted to see a Constituent Assembly
            • All Anti-Bolshevik, but deeply divided
        • Greens
          • Peasant armies + deserters from other armies
          • Aims
            • Some supported Bolsheviks some didn't
            • Mostly served to protect their own areas and for independence
      • Course
        • Czech Legion
          • Fierce fighting with Soviets as they trecked across Russia to rejoin the allies on the Western Front
            • The soviets tried to disarm them, and the Legion managed to take control of the Trans Siberian Railway
              • White forces grew around them
        • Attempted assassination of Lenin
          • Fanny Kaplan left him with a bullet lodged in his neck, contributing to his death 6 years later
        • Challenge from the SRs
          • SR organised a military coup in Moscow following Brest-Litovsk
            • Violently crushed by Bolshevik artillery units
        • Kronstadt Rising
          • Manifesto
            • New Soviet election held by secret ballot
            • Freedom of speech, press, and assembly
            • Rights for trade unions and end of special rationing for communists
          • Crushed
            • Ultimatum
              • All Kronstadt lay down arms or be disarmed and surrendered
            • Kronstadt rejected the ultimatum, and the Cheka and Red Army stormed the base
              • The sailors resisted fiercely, but were eventually suppressed
                • Ringleaders were condemned and shot
          • As a result, Lenin softened the harshness of War Communism, and introduced the NEP
            • New Economic Policy
              • Features
                • Central economic control relaxed
                • Requisitioning replaced with tax in kind
                • Peasants could keep surplus and sell for profit
                • Public markets restore and money reintroduced as a means of trading
              • Ban on Factions
                • Trotsky and others saw repression as the proper revolutionary strategy, and were disturbed that capiotalism was now being tolerated
                • Non compliance now meant immediate expulsion
              • Economic Results
                • Clear recovery in production figures (Grain Harvest, Factory output, Electricity, and wage)
                • Bolsheviks still commanded the heights of the economy
                • Still high unemployment in urban areas
      • Features/Means of Control
        • War Communism
          • Grain Requisitioning
          • Banning of Private Trade
          • Nationalisation of Industry
          • Labour Discipline
          • Rationing
          • Impact
            • Industry
              • Military needs had priority, so industry suffered
              • Hyperinflation
            • Agriculture
              • GR exasperated peasants refusual to conform
              • Grain taken by force from kulaks especially
              • Grain Hoarding was common with hopes of selling
              • Famine
                • Over 5 million starved to death in the civil war
                • The USA provided food for 10 million Russians
            • Tambov Rising
              • SR Antonov led peasants armies in Tambov, attacking requisitioning squads and stealing their weapons
                • Eventually crushed by the Red Army
        • Red Terror
          • Cheka
            • Secret police to destroy opposition
              • Forced enemies of the revolution into labour camps
            • Unlimited powers of arrest, detention and torture
            • Had to exterminate enemies of the working class
            • Murder of the Tsar and his Family
              • Gave the Tsarists nothing to fight for
          • Show Trials
            • Leading members of outlawed parties put on humiliating public trials, the law became a means of political control
        • Red Army
          • Crushed trade unions through bans on questioning orders, non negotiable rates of pay, and severe penalties for poor production levels
          • Trotsky imposed death penalty for desertion or disloyalty
          • Imposed conscription under the slogan "Everything for the Front"
      • Reasons for Bolshevik Victory
        • White Weakness
          • Poor unity, armies fought individually and for different aims
          • Widely scattered geographically, unable to put pressure on the enemy
            • Round the edges in lesser populated areas, movement of men and resources and communication were difficult
          • Too reliant on supplies from abroad
          • Lacked a strong leader, and were cruel with no results, putting off soldiers
        • Red Strengths
          • Maintained control of central areas, in control of inner communications and supply lines
            • Control of Petrograd and Moscow, and control of the railway network
          • Strong hold of industrial centres meant access to munitions and resources
          • Organisation and leadership of Trotsky was outstanding
            • Prevented Whites from concentrating large forces
            • Defended internal lines of communication
            • Prevented Whites maintaining regular supplies
            • Exhausted enemies as an attacking force and then drove them to surrender
          • Brutality
            • Both sides used terror to crush opposition
            • Offered defeated troops and neutrals enlistment or execution
            • White atrocities provided Red propaganda opportunity
    • Lenin's Time in Power
      • Strengths
        • Ruthlessness
        • Inspired loyalty
        • Political opportunism and self belief
          • Was never deterred
        • Ideology into reality and  workability
      • Weaknesses
        • Disregard to human cost
          • Unnecessary suffering
        • Bolshevik state more oppressive than Tsarism
        • Not open to any other political ideas
        • Hostility to capitalism denied sustained economic growth

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