H07 13 Soviet Union - LENIN 10/12/2018
Name: ______DUE: THU. 31 JAN2013
Homework: Lenin Global History II H
Влади́мир Ильи́чЛе́нин
[ Vladimir Ilich LENIN]
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H07 13 Soviet Union - LENIN 10/12/2018
LENIN (1870-1924).
… If you remember anything about LENIN ….
You need to remember 3 things:
1. Lenin was the FATHER of the SOVIET UNION.
2. Lenin “started” the Communist movement.
3. Lenin’s slogan was PEACE, BREAD, and LAND.
The revolution that brought the Communist party to power in Russia in 1917 has been called the most important political event of the 20th century. Its leader was Lenin, a Marxian socialist. Lenin spent years studying the technique of revolution and building up a following. At the right moment he carried out his plan with great skill.
Lenin's real name was Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov. He was born on April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, Russia, a town on the VolgaRiver. His father, a teacher, rose to be a provincial director of schools. Vladimir was 16 when his father died. The next year his older brother, Alexander, was executed for taking part in a plot to assassinate Czar Alexander III.Lenin's hatred of the ruling and propertied classes began at this time.
A few months after his brother's execution Lenin was expelled from school for taking part in a political demonstration. For several years he lived with relatives, studying law, languages, and the writings of Karl Marx. In 1891 he passed his law examinations. He soon gave up his law practice to spend full time in the revolutionary underground movement in St. Petersburg, then the Russian capital.
Lenin was arrested in 1895, sent to jail, and later exiled to Siberia. There he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, whom he had known in the St. Petersburg underground.
When his jail term ended in 1900 Lenin went abroad. The next year his wife joined him. Most of the time until 1917 the couple lived as exiles, traveling from country to country, often with forged passports. With other Russian Marxists they published a newspaper, Iskra (The Spark), which was smuggled into Russia.
In 1903 some 60 Russian revolutionaries opened a congress in Brussels. The Belgian police ordered them to leave, and the congress was continued in London. Lenin's fanaticism made him unpopular with the more moderate old-guard socialists; he advocated a small, secret party, or vanguard, of full-time revolutionaries who would lead ordinary workers to revolution. His ideas split the Russian Social Democratic party in two: Lenin's radical group, the Bolsheviks (Majority), and the more moderate group, the Mensheviks (Minority).
The party also split in Russia. The Bolsheviks, which were actually the smaller group, followed Lenin's instructions implicitly in carrying out acts of terrorism. He told them how to break into banks, how to obtain and use bombs, how to set fires, and how to sabotage trucks. The party organized cells in trade unions, among transportation workers, and in the army and navy.
The Lenins were in Switzerland during World War I. Most socialists supported their governments in the war. Lenin called on the workers of all countries to revolt and end the war.This interestedthe German government, which wanted peace with Russia.
Russia's losses in the war were appalling. Revolution broke out in March 1917. The czar was dethroned by the new provisional government, but the war went on. The German government, hoping to change the course of the revolution, agreed to allow the Lenins and 30 other revolutionaries to return to Russia. The group arrived at Finland Station, in the Russian capital, on April 16. The next day Leon Trotsky arrived from New York City. Lenin and Trotsky made a formidable team. In July the Bolsheviks took part in an unsuccessful uprising. The provisional government accused Lenin of being a German agent, and he fled to Finland. On October 22 he returned secretly. After instructing the Bolsheviks, he again went into hiding.
On November 6 Lenin reappeared to direct the revolution. Before daybreak on November 7 (October 25 in the old Russian calendar) the Bolsheviks seized the railway station, state bank, power stations, and telephone exchange. In the evening they arrested cabinet members meeting in the WinterPalace. On November 9 Lenin formed the world's first Communist government.
Lenin suffered two strokes in 1922 and a third in 1923. After a fatal stroke, on Jan. 21, 1924, Joseph Stalin succeeded him. The Soviets long regarded Lenin as their greatest national hero. His writings particularly his directives for the Communist party ranked with those of Marx. Lenin's tomb, on Red Square in Moscow, was a national shrine. In 1924 St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After the demise of Communism and breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, however, the Russian people began to turn against Lenin and all he stood for. The citizens of Leningrad in 1991 voted to restore the city's name to St. Petersburg.
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H07 13 Soviet Union - LENIN 10/12/2018
LENIN
KARL MARX(1818-83). Known during his lifetime only to a small group of socialists and revolutionaries, Karl Marx wrote books now considered by Communists all over the world to be the source of absolute truth on matters of economics, philosophy, and politics. Most modern socialists also base their doctrines to a lesser or greater degree on Marx's theories.
Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier in the German Rhineland. His grandfather was a rabbi. His father, a successful lawyer, had his entire family baptized for business and social reasons. Marx studied law at Bonn and philosophy at the University of Berlin. While in Berlin he became acquainted with the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
At 24 he became editor of a paper in Cologne, Germany. His radical ideas soon got him into censorship trouble, and he went to Paris, partly to escape arrest. With him went his beautiful young wife, Jenny von Westphalen, whom he had married in spite of both families' misgivings.
Expelled from Paris in 1845, Marx lived for a time in Brussels, Belgium. He later returned to Paris but was expelled again in 1849. Marx then went to England. He made his home in London for the remaining 34 years of his life. He lived in wretched poverty and spent day after day studying in the BritishMuseum library. He was devoted to his wife and children, but because of his uncompromising nature he had few friends.
One friend, however, remained faithful to him and paid his bills. He was Friedrich Engels, a textile manufacturer whose ideas were in complete accord with Marx's and who collaborated with him in his writing.
Marx died in London on March 14, 1883. He had outlived his wife and all but two of his six children. Only eight people were present to hear Engels' funeral speech in HighgateCemetery.
While in Brussels Marx and Engels had written the pamphlet 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' (“The Communist Manifesto”), published in 1848. It contains the simplest expression of Marx's beliefs. The ideas in it were later developed at length in the three volumes of Marx's major work, 'Das Kapital' (Capital). This also was written in collaboration with Engels, who published the last two volumes after Marx's death. The first volume appeared in 1867.
Marx based his theories on what he believed to be the scientific evidence of history. He searched the past for proof of the continual class struggle between the middle-class exploiters (the bourgeoisie) and the oppressed working people (the proletariat). The final struggle, he predicted, would lead to the overthrow of capitalism and its supporters.
He claimed a classless society would then emerge and there would thus be no more revolutions. Everyone would be guided by the the following idea "From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." The state, or organized government, would no longer be needed and would "wither away." Everyone would be equal. Marx did not concern himself much with practical problems but concentrated only on the revolution itself. What Marx wrote about and wanted is a utopia, a perfect society, which is impossible because of man’s wants, desires and needs. This in and by itself can often lead to conflict.
QUESTIONS
1. Who was the “FATHER” of the Soviet Union ?
2. What was this person's "rally cry" .... "slogan" ?
3. What did Lenin do/accomplish?
4. Who was he against?
5. Which foreign country supported him, and why?
6. Who did Lenin follow/base his political philosophy on?
7. What did Karl Marx write?
8. What social class conflict was identified by Karl Marx?
9. How did he say it would be resolved/settled?
10. In the end what type of society did he say would be created, and is it possible?
11. What type of society/government did Lenin eventually help put in place in the Soviet Union?
12. After Lenin and the Bolsheviks/Communists took over
what was the nation/country "Russia" changed to (what name was it called by) ?
13. Where was the nation's capital moved to?
…………… the “Soviet Union” begins under Ле́нин LENIN …………………
Please try and answer the questions from the other reading. I'll fill-in the gaps in class.
Lenin became chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and virtual dictator; Trotsky, Stalin, and Rykov were the other chief members. The Bolsheviks (who became the Communist party) asserted that the October Revolution had established a proletarian dictatorship. The new government’s first acts were to propose an armistice with Germany and to abolish private ownership of land and distribute it among the peasants. Banks were nationalized, a supreme council was established to revive the dislocated economy, and workers’ control over factory production was introduced. Atheism officially replaced doctrinal religion. All opposition was ruthlessly suppressed by the Cheka, or political (secret) police, under Dzerzhinsky. ... Now if you recall Karl Marx & Marxism ... the Workers would revolt, control the means of production, everyone would be equal .. and ... there would be a small government organization called the State .. which would "slowly wither away." ... The problem with Lenin and his Communists .. the State never withered away. It remained .. as a dictatorship. By the end of the 2nd Revolution .. one dictatorship ... the absolutist Romanov dynasty .. had been replaced by another dictatorship .. the Communist Party.
Lenin fulfilled his promise of peace by accepting the humiliating treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Mar., 1918). However, civil war in Russia and a war with Poland prevented peace from coming to Russia until late 1920. In 1919, Lenin established the Third International, or Comintern, to further world revolution. The policy of “war Communism” prevailed until 1921. It brought extensive nationalization, food requisitioning, and control over industry. In 1921, in an attempt to boost the economy, Lenin launched the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed some private enterprise.
Under the New Economic Policy (NEP) peasants could retain excess produce and sell it for a profit. Smaller businesses were permitted to operate as private enterprises. Large industries remained under state control. They operated on the open market, but the state controlled the fixing of prices and the appointment of boards of directors. Private trade and wages were restored, and compulsory labor service was abolished. By 1928, the NEP had raised the Soviet national income above its prewar level. However, the NEP policies proved inadequate for the expansionist aims of Stalin and were reversed
By 1922, Lenin had eliminated all organized opposition and had silenced hostile factions within the party. In fact, Lenin had set up a dictatorship of the Communist party, which controlled the hierarchy of local, regional, and central soviets. He retained the post of chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and was a member of the ruling Politburo of the Communist party until his death.
The strain of Lenin’s labors destroyed his health. He suffered a stroke in 1922; a later stroke (1923) deprived him of speech. In a testament criticizing Stalin, written near the end of his life, he recommended Stalin’s removal from the post of general secretary of the party. Lenin felt Stalin was too harsh a person. After his death (Jan. 21, 1924) this testament was suppressed, and Stalin emerged victorious in the contest for succession. Lenin’s remains are in a mausoleum on Red Square.
QUESTIONS:
1. What did Lenin spend much of his time doing during the first years of his rule in the Soviet Union,
and why?
2. Once this was accomplished what did he turn his attention to?
3. By 1922 "at least on paper" (I'll explain this quote to you in class.):
a. What type of government was established in the Soviet Union?
b. What could everyone over 18 years of age do ?
c. Describe the economic system in the Soviet Union.
4. In reality was the Soviet Union "democratic"?
I'll fill you in on the way people voted in order to demonstrate this point.
5. What was the "official" title for the "Soviet Union"?
Союз Советских Социалистических Республик СССР
Soýuz Sov́etskikh Sotsialist́icheskikh Resṕublik
[ Union of Soviet Socialist Republics] USSR
6. Which culture dominated all others in the Soviet Union?
7. What was this similar to in Russia during the 1800s?
8. What do the letters NEP stand for, what type of “system” was it, and briefly describe it ….
9. What was the NEP supposed to accomplish for Lenin, and did it?
Give at least one example to prove your case.
10. Why wasn't Lenin satisfied with the results?
11. What was St. Petersburg changed to and for whom?
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