Lenin's rule 1920-1924

Key Dates:

• 1918-20- Red Terror is established
• January 1918- Establishment of the Red Army, Decree on Seperation of Church and State
• June 1918- Decree of Nationalisation 
• July 1918- Murder of the Romanov's
• March 1921- The Kronstadt Rising, NEP introduced, Decree on Factionalism
• 1922-23- Lenin suffers strokes
• 1923- The Scissors Crisis
• January 1924- Death of Vladimir Lenin

Red Terror:

Red Terror was the repression system enforced by the Cheka secret police in the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1921, the two main instruments being the Cheka and The Red Army. The Cheka were led by Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish arisocrat who came to communism through his hatred of his families privelleges, and had the rights to complete and unscrutinsed detention. They could arrest, torture, try and execute anyone. The Red Army was constructed by Trotsky to replace the old army. It used mass conscription to bolster out its ranks, and was extremely harsh in its conduct. However, the army was also designed to operate without rank, and elected the officers from the members of the army.

War Communism:

War Communism was a system implemented in 1918. It was a set of restrictive communist economic measures designed to replace the State Capitalist system, but in reality it never worked due to the extent it went to, and eventually a different system that was somewhat capitalist had to brought in. The effect of this was felt in various areas:

• Industry: Lenin announced the decree on Nationalisation in order to bring industry under government control. He wanted this so that he could centralise the economy and within two years virtually all sectors were government controlled, but production did not increase
• Agriculture: Peasants didn't see the benefit of producing more grain as the government wouldn't pay a fair price for it. This lead to the accusation that the peasants were hoarding the grain, leading to the creation of requisitioning squads who would forcibly remove a government dictated percentage of grain
• The Church: Lenin welcomed the situations caused by the faminen as it allowed him to systematically dismantle the church

Although unpopular with the people, War Communism was popular with the party's left as it was an example of revolutionary…