I. How much support did the Bolsheviks have from the people?
The Bolsheviks did not have anything like majority support in the country as a whole.
a. the elections of November 1917
i. Bolshevik seats - 175 out of 700
ii. Social Revolutionary seats - 370 out of 700
iii. Mensheviks seats - 15 out of 700
iv. "left wing" groups - 40 out of 700
v. nationality groups - 80 out of 700
vi. Kadets - 17 out of 700
b. How did Lenin respond to the election results?
Lenin was determined not to share power with the SRs, or hand power over to them. After some anti-Bolshevik speeches at the Constituent Assembly in 1918, it was dispersed by the Bolshevik Red Guards and not allowed to meet again, and the Assembly must take second place to the Congress of Soviets and Sovnarkom, which was a cabinet in which all 15 members were Bolsheviks. Lenin claimed his actions were consistent with democracy because the Bolsheviks knew what the workers wanted.
II. What was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and what were its conditions?
a. It was a treaty between Russia and the Central Powers.
b. Russia gave up
i. 1/3 of its farming land
ii. 1/3 of its population
iii. 2/3 of its coal-mines and 1/2 its heavy industry
^ This was because Russia lost Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, and Finland.
III. Why did the Bolsheviks resort to violence?
a. Violence from others
i. Petrograd and Moscow - There were food shortages and Lenin believed that the better-off peasants were hoarding huge quantities of grain, so Lenin's new secret police (Cheka) dealt with grain hoarders and speculators.
ii. Ukraine - The loss of Ukraine made the food situation worse, as Ukraine was a major source of wheat.
iii. Social Revolutionaries - They did a complete campaign of terror, assassinating the German ambassador and a leading Bolshevik member of the Petrograd soviet, with evidence that they were trying to seize power for themselves.
iv. violence aimed at Bolshevik leaders - The head of the Petrograd Cheka was assassinated on August 30, 1918, and a woman shot Lenin twice with a revolver at point-blank range the same day.
b. Lenin's flawed reasoning
i. Marx's predictions
1. The collapse of capitalism would take place in 2 stages; first, the middle class bourgeois capitalists would overthrow the autocratic monarchy and set up systems of parliamentary democracy.
2. When industrialization was complete, the industrial workers who were now a majority would overthrow the bourgeois capitalists and set up a classless society.
ii. Russia's reality
1. The first stage took place with the February revolution.
2. Lenin insisted that the two revolutions - bourgeois and proletarian could be telescoped together. However, because the Bolsheviks were in power before their most reliable supporters, the industrial workers had become a large enough class to sustain them, the Bolsheviks ended up a minority government, dependent on the peasants).
iii. Lenin's expectations for the rest of Europe
Lenin expected that if the revolution in Russia was successful, a European or even worldwide revolution would follow. He believed that revolutions would happen next in central and western Europe, and the Soviet government would be supported by neighboring governments. When this didn't happen, Russia was left isolated with the rest of capitalist Europe suspicious of them.
c. Liberal historical interpretation
Liberal historians believe that Lenin and Trotsky were committed to the use of violence and terror from the beginning. One historian claimed that Lenin regarded terror as a necessary element of a revolutionary government and was prepared to use it as a preventive measure even if no one was opposing his rule. This would explain why he set up the Cheka.
IV. The Red Terror
a. against peasants - The Red Army was used to enforce the procurement of grain from peasants who were thought to be hoarding the grain.
b. against political opponents - Social Revolutionaries were rounded up and shot, and many of those arrested and executed weren't guilty of any particular offense, but accused of being 'bourgeois' (term of abuse applied to landowners, priests, businessmen, employers, army officers, professional people).
c. against the former Tsar - The ex-Tsar Nicholas and his family were killed. In the summer of 1918, they were kept under guard in a house in the Urals, and Lenin gave the orders for them to be killed. The civil war was in full swing and the Bolsheviks were afraid that the White forces might rescue the royal family.
V. Civil War
a. Which groups made up the "Whites"? The opposition, consisting of Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, ex-tsarist offices and any other groups which opposed the Bolsheviks.
b. What was the Whites' main goal? To set up a democratic government on Western lines.
c. What was the role of other nations? A White government was set up in Siberia. The Czechoslovak Legion seized long stretches of the Trans-Siverian Railway, and these troops were originally prisoners taken by the Russians from the Austro-Hungarian army, who fought against the Germans.
d. What was the result of the Civil War? The Bolsheviks survived. The Communists won the civil war. The White armies suffered many defeats and the interventionist states lost interest, withdrawing their troops. In 1920 when Polish and French troops invaded Ukraine, it forced Russia to hand over part of Ukraine and White Russia. The Communists were happy they had won the civil war, however, and Lenin presented it as a great victory.
e. How were the communists able to win the Civil War?
i. The Whites were not centrally organized.
ii. The Red Armies had more troops.
iii. Lenin took decisive measures, known as war communism, to control the economic resources of the state. For instance all factories were nationalized, all private trade banned, and food and grain seized from peasants.
iv. Lenin presented the Bolsheviks as a nationalist government fighting against foreigners. The Whites had foreign connections, which made them less popular, even though war communism was not popular overall.
VI. What were the effects of the Civil War?
a. civilian deaths - 8 million
b. economic changes - Important changes had taken place in the communist regime as well - it became more centralized, and state control was extended over all areas of the economy. The regime was also militarized and brutalized. The Civil War was responsible for the political developments of the communists.
VII. What was done about economic problems?
a. effects of war communism
i. Peasants only produced enough food for their own needs, since they knew that any excess food would be taken from them without compensation.
ii. A naval mutiny occurred at Kronstadt, the island naval base off St. Petersburg. This convinced Lenin that a new approach was needed to win back the support of the peasants, who formed the majority of the population.
b. reforms of the New Economic Policy
i. Peasants were allowed to keep surplus produce after they paid a tax representing a certain amount of the surplus.
ii. Small industries were restored to private ownership, though coal, steel, iron, power, transport and banking, remained under state control.
iii. Foreign investment was encouraged to help develop and modernize Russian industry.
c. successes of the NEP
i. The economy began to recover, production levels also improved.
ii. Great progress made with the electrification of industry.
iii. There was an eight hour working day, two week holiday with pay, sick and unemployment pay and health care, which gave industrial workers an easier time.
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