Bread, Peace, and Land WHAP/Napp
“At the beginning of the war Russiahad the largest army in theworld, but its generals were incompetent,supplies were lacking,and soldiers were poorlytrained and equipped. In August 1914 two Russianarmies invaded eastern Germany but were thrown back. In 1916, after a string of defeats, the Russian armyran out of ammunition and other essential supplies. Soldierswere ordered into battle unarmed and told to pickup the rifles of fallen comrades. With so many men in thearmy, railroads broke down for lack of fuel and parts, andcrops rotted in the fields. Civilians faced shortages andwidespread hunger. The court ofTsarNicholas II, however, remained as extravagant andcorrupt as ever. In earlyMarch 1917 (February by the old Russian calendar)food ran out in Petrograd (St.Petersburg), the capital. Housewives and women factory workers staged massdemonstrations. Soldiers mutinied and joined strikingworkers to form soviets (councils) to take over factoriesand barracks. A few days later the tsar abdicated, andleaders of the parliamentary parties, led by AlexanderKerensky, formed a Provisional Government. Thus beganwhat Russians called the “February Revolution.”
Revolutionary groups formerly hunted by the tsar’spolice came out of hiding. Most numerous were the SocialRevolutionaries, who advocated the redistributionof land to the peasants. The Social Democrats, a Marxistparty, were divided into two factions:Mensheviks andBolsheviks. The Mensheviks advocated electoral politicsand reform in the tradition of European socialists andhad a large following. The Bolsheviks, their rivals, were a small buttightly disciplined group of radicals obedient to the willof their leader, Vladimir Lenin. Lenin spent years in exile,first in Siberia and later in Switzerland, where he devotedhis full attention to organizing his followers. He professedMarx’s ideas about class conflict,but he never visited a factory or a farm. His goal was tocreate a party that would lead the revolution rather than wait for it. He explained: ‘Classes are led by parties andparties are led by individuals…The will of a class issometimes fulfilled by a dictator.’ He called the individuals who lead the revolution the ‘Vanguard Party of the Proletariat.’ In early April 1917 the German government, hopingto destabilize Russia, allowed Lenin to travel fromSwitzerland to Russia in a sealed railway car. As soon ashe arrived in Petrograd, he announced his program: immediatepeace, all power to the soviets, and transfers ofland to the peasants and factories to the workers. Thisplan proved immensely popular among soldiers andworkers exhausted by the war. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks were gaining supportamong the workers of Petrograd and the soldiers andsailors stationed there. On November 6, 1917 (October 24in the Russian calendar), they rose up and took over the city, calling their action the ‘October Revolution.’ Theirsudden move surprised rival revolutionary groups that believed that a ‘socialist’ revolution could happen only after many years of ‘bourgeois’ rule. Lenin, however,was more interested in power than in the fine points ofMarxist doctrine. He overthrew the Provisional Governmentand arrested Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries,and other rivals.” ~ The Earth and Its Peoples
1- Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate when(A) Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace.
(B) An assassination attempt revealed that his family was in danger.
(C) Troops in the capital mutinied. / 2- Although he called himself a Marxist, Lenin, unlike Marx, believed that
(A) rural peasants would lead the revolution
(B) A small, highly-disciplined party acting on behalf of the workers would lead the revolution
Key Words/ Questions / I. The Trouble with Russia
A.Tsar’s wife, Alexandra, German by birth, suspected of favoring Central Powers and Russia was ill-prepared for WWI
B.Adding to losses on the front, a strange religious sectarian, Grigory Rasputin, had gained influence over the royal family
1. Rasputin was supposedly able to control the hemophilia of Tsar’s son
C.In March 1917 a riot broke out when people demanded food
E. Russian generals sent a message to the tsar: abdicate
F. Nicholas complied and a Provisional Government was set up
1. Unfortunately, Provisional Government believed war could still be won
2. Provisional Government also had to share power with councils, soviets
a) Leaders of the soviets were inspired by Marxist doctrine
G. The Bolsheviks were one faction of Marxist revolutionaries
1.While others debated what should be done, Bolsheviks urged action
2.Action: peace at once, bread for everyone, and land to the peasants
3.On November 7, 1917, Red Guards, military arm of Bolsheviks, burst into Winter Palace, scattering Provisional Government’s officials
II. The New Bolshevik Government
- Lenin contacted Germans to discuss peace: met at border town of Brest-
- Trotsky refused to sign but Lenin convinced him to sign
- Russia then plunged into civil war as not all Russians were Marxists
- Red Army, organized by Trotsky, versus the Whites, anti-Communists
- Former Tsar Nicholas II, Alexandra, and children were executed
- In 1921 country called Union of Soviet Socialist Republics after victory
A. Lenin gave the secret police, Cheka, power to search out dissenters
- Result was mass executions, imprisonment, and flight of millions
- Russian Orthodox church lost all its property, and patriarch was jailed
- All Soviet life came under the management of the state
- Soviet legislation forbade strikes
- Lenin dominated executive committee of party, as head of the Politburo
- In 1923, however, Lenin suffered a stroke
- Leon Trotsky seemed to be next in line but Josef Stalin came to power
- Lenin had shown that flexibility when he used the New Economic Policy (NEP) which allowed farmers to sell produce on market and permitted small entrepreneurs to run their own businesses
- But Stalin followed Marxist prescriptions for a socialist society
- In 1928: first Five Year Plan to industrialize and collectivize agriculture
- Landowning peasants, kulaks, preferred death to giving landto state
- Resistance was strong in Ukraine: many peasants suffered
- Stalin also launched the Great Purge in which anyone suspected of dissent was either shot or sent to a labor camps (gulags)
- Which of the following best describes the Communist takeover of Russia in 1917?
(B)Defeat in World War I demoralized the country so badly that the population overthrew the tsar and voted the Communists into power.
(C)Recognizing its limitations, the Provisional government voluntarily stepped down from power, handing government over to the Communists.
(D)Taking advantage of widespread radicalism and popular discontent with the Provisional Government, the Communists staged a successful armed insurrection.
(E)The Communists won the majority of seats in parliamentary elections.
- Which political figure eventually emerged to lead the Bolshevik Party after the death of Lenin?
(B)Khrushchev
(C)Gorbachev
(D)Stalin
(E)Bukharin
- Which factor in the Russian and Chinese revolutions was not present in the French Revolution?
(B)Resentment of peasants
(C)Shortages of bread
(D)Class divisions /
- Which of the following were the main slogans the Bolsheviks put forward on their road to power in 1917?
- Peace
II. Land
III.Bread
(A)I, II, and IV
(B)II, III, and IV
(C)I, II, and III
(D)I, III, and IV
(E)I and IV
- Why did the Bolshevik regime turn to a New Economic Policy in the early 1920s?
(B)Lenin and leading Bolshevik elements gave up socialism as a long-range goal.
(C)Lenin and leading Bolshevik elements sought to bring back free enterprise and the profit motive in order to jump-start an economy severely dislocated by World War I and the Russian Civil War.
(D)Stalin had already replaced Lenin as leader of the Bolsheviks and sought a more rapid push toward communism.
(E)Industrial development was seen as inherently exploitative of workers and was renounced in the NEP.
Thesis Practice: Continuity and Change over Time – Analyze continuities and changes in Russia’s political and economic systems from 1861 to 1921.
______
Revolution in Russia: Liberalism to Communism
“In 1917, the tsar abdicated and aprovisional government, headed by AlexanderKerensky, struggled to maintain control of thecountry. When reforms seemed slow in coming, popular unrest ensued and by the end of theyear a second revolution occurred, bringing into power a radical new form of government – Communism. Under the Bolshevik banner, Vladimir Lenin signed a treaty ending hostilitieswith Germany and ended any semblance of a multiparty system. An ensuing civil war killedmillions, but the Communist Red Army prevailed, under the leadership of Leon Trotsky.
Stabilization of Russia’s Communist Regime
“Lenin issued the New Economic Policy, astopgap economic mix of true Communism and capitalism. Food production increased, givingthe Bolsheviks time to strengthen their grip on national politics. By 1923, the Union of SovietSocialist Republics was a fact but was a ‘peoples’ government’ in name only, with all thefeatures of an authoritarian system.
Soviet Experimentation
“In the middle of the 1920s, the Communist Party encouraged theorganization of workers’, students’, and women’s groups, and provided public education. Thisera of experimentation was short-lived however, as a power struggle broke out among Lenin’sdeputies after his unexpected death. The eventual winner was Joseph Stalin, who believed in astrong nationalistic version of Communism which he called ‘socialism in one country.’ Rivalsto his political philosophy were exiled and/or killed.” ~ World Civilizations
Questions:
In Russia’s revolution, a council of workers, or ______, took over the capitalcity government and arrested the tsar’s ministers.
True or False: Vigorous hostility to socialism produced a “Red Scare” in the United States in the 1920s.
True or False: Stalin implemented programs to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union and collectivize agriculture.
True or False: The New Economic Policy implemented by Lenin introduced elements of free market capitalism into the Soviet economy.
True or False: During Stalin’s Great Purge, individuals were given fair trials to determine guilt or innocence.
True or False: The Bolsheviks promised “Bread, Peace, and Laissez-Faire.”
True or False: The Russian Civil War was fought between the Reds and the Whites.
True or False: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk benefited the Communist leaders of Russia greatly.