-With this the Provisional government jailed Trotsky and some other prominent Bolshevik officials. Lenin and Zinoviev managed to escape to Finland.
- Kerensky becomes PM
- Kornilov Plot
Kerensky seemed too weak a leader to many army officers, and it was not hard for Kornilov to win their support for the Bolsheviks. September 7 1917 Kornilov demanded Kerensky’s resignation, which forced Kerensky to ask the Bolsheviks for help and allowed (previously illegal) Bolshevik military organisation to arm the Red Guards. Kerensky was arrested soon after, but his plan had placed the Bolsheviks in a good position.
- On the 7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks were in position at all the key points (at railway stations, bridges, road junctions, telephone exchanges and printing works).
-The Red Guards and the other revolutionary groups moved under the orders of the Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee. These forces seized post and telegraph offices, electric works, railroad stations, and the state bank. Once the shot rang out from the Battleship Aurora, the thousands of people in the Red Guard stormed the Winter Palace. The Provisional Government had officially fallen to the Bolshevik regime. Once the word came to the rest of the people that the Winter Palace had been taken, people from all over rose and filled it. Lenin presented the Russian people with a brand new government -The Council of People’s Commissars-with himself at its head. The revolution soon spread to Moscow and to the rest of Russia.
-The Bolsheviks were not the most popular party in Russia in 1917, which was proved in the Constituent Assembly election in November. Nevertheless by November 1917 the Bolsheviks were undoubtedly popular in both Moscow and Petrograd.
THE CIVIL WAR AND FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS 1918-22
-The only free Parliament-Constitutional Assembly- in Russia’s history was to be elected in November 1917(18 January 1918). Lenin was not surprised when the Bolsheviks won mere 175 seats out of the possible 707. Disregarding the results of the Constituent Assembly elections Lenin ordered the Assembly dissolved at gunpoint in January 1918, after only one day in session.
- Peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk
On 3 March 1918 the Russians signed a treaty with the Germans, because peace was vital to them. The treaty was both humiliating and an economic disaster. At Brest-Litovsk the Russians surrendered some of Russia’s richest provinces (Ukraine) and important industrial areas.
- Communists were already facing counter-revolution, mass unemployment and the threat of starvation just six months after they came to power. Large numbers of Russians did not accept Bolshevik rule, Lenin only controlled Moscow and Petrograd, while elsewhere their opponents were in the process of establishing an anti-Bolshevik government.
- The Czech Legion was on the rampage along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which led to the conscription of peasants back into the armed forces. During this time, thousands of foreign soldiers invaded Russia form all directions, but Lenin still stimulated patriotism of Russians and their support in the war.
-Victory in Russia
- Russo-Polish War
During 1919 Polish nationalists were fighting the Red Army, who were trying to set up a puppet government there. During April 1920 Poland invaded Ukraine, but the Bolsheviks seemed too preoccupied with civil war. The conflict see-saws for about six months with little territory gained. The Red Army suffered its major defeat at the Battle of Vistula, and now believed that they were too weak to spearhead international revolutionary wars in Europe. The Treaty of Riga, mar 18, 1921 ended the territory disputes.
LENIN’S RUSSIA
-The RSFSR was created in July 1918 by a drafted constitution. The constitutions elaborate structure of elected representatives concealed a communist dictatorship controlled by Lenin.
-The Cheka was a new secret police, founded in December 1917, which rooted out opposition to this new dictatorship. Cheka agents killed thousands of suspects and threw hundreds more into jail. In August 1918 there was assassination attempt on Lenin, he survived, but he never really recovered.
- War communism-All industry was brought under state control. Industry's problems deepened by hyperinflation. Ration cards were given to state workers for their wages, theses cards could be exchanged for food or coal. There was also forced labour. Food shortages were another issue that led Lenin to War communism.
- Kronstadt uprising
Kronstadt sailors had been Lenin’s supporters since 1917, but in February 1921 they were horrified when Trotsky crushed a strike in Petrograd, they rose in revolt. Trotsky led some Cheka and Red Army elements to deal with them; scores were massacred.
- NEP
In March 1921 Lenin launched the NEP, by temporarily putting aside his plans for a state-controlled economy. Instead, he resorted to a small-scale version of capitalism. The new policies were: that farmers had to contribute 10% of their production to the state but could sell any surplus on the open market; small private businesses were allowed to operate; State controlled industry operated under capitalist notions such as the profit motive, the right to dismiss worker, the right to reduce wages; Trade passed into private hands; Currency reform with the reintroduction of gold backing and balanced budgets; Confiscated property returned and loans made available to those willing to develop timber, oil and other resources.
The NEP was the opposite to the goals of the communists but was necessary to avoid continuation of chaos and the possibility of a counter-revolution. Lenin quenched the disagreement within the party, but it was to reappear after his death. The return of capitalist manager was criticised but Lenin realised they were the only ones with the necessary expertise. Lenin retained control of the 'commanding heights' of the economy, although many enterprises went back into private hands. Lenin grouped state-controlled industries together assuming it would be easier to move from this to socialism. Food and industrial production increased, and a massive electricity program was started.
- The Great Famine- Lenin was unable to stop the spread of famine and sickness across most of Russia. Lenin was powerless to handle the crisis, but he did get some assistance for Hoover's American Relief administration which brought in grain to feed the railway workers so they could have the strength to build a railway to ship foodstuffs across the country.
- Because of the war with Poland, Lenin had no chose but to abandon war communism and the idea of an international revolution. In May 1922 Lenin suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed. But he still managed to write a testament, because he feared party division after his death. In January 1924 Lenin died, which opened a power struggle for control of the party and the country.
THE USSR
-On 31 January 1924 the All union Congress of Soviets ratified the draft of a new constitution, which united the republics of Belorussia, Transcaucasia and the Ukraine with the RSFSR. The newly created federation would be called the USSR.
- Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev were seen as potential successors to Lenin. Trotsky seemed the most likely candidate. But Stalin influenced Zinoviev and Kamenev to join forces with him against Trotsky.
-Stalin ('man of steel') exercised enormous power behind the scenes, and was well placed to make a bid for the dictatorship of the USSR. He could be considered the link between the party leadership and the administrative levels below. Stalin used his position to ensure the appointment of his loyal supporters in the offices that were important to him. Stalin was also popular because he came from the peasant class. While many believed Trotsky should be dictator, he never made a formal bid for leadership. Russians considered Trotsky arrogant and ambitious, he believed in a continuous revolution, while Stalin stood for Socialism in one country - which had a greater appeal in the USSR.
-In 1925 Trotsky was dismissed from his post as War Commissar. Soon Zinoviev and Kamenev joined him, because Stalin had cut ties of with them as soon as he had defeated Trotsky. Stalin instead allied with the right wing of the party led by Bukharin, Tomsky and Rykov. In 1926 Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev were expelled for the Politburo. The three new members were Molotov, Voroshiloc and Kalinin, who were all Stalin's supporters. By 1927 Stalin had stripped Trotsky of all his political power. During 1929 Stalin banished his fallen rivals from the USSR and by 1930, Stalin could claim to be the undisputed dictator of the communist Russia.
- By 1926 the first affects of the Rapallo Treaty with Germany were felt inside of the USSR; factories were making supplies for the German Army. There was no secret about Soviet trade with the West, because Stalin bought machines and technology in the west. His intention was to make Russia into a modern industrial state.
SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY: STALIN AND AGRICULTURE
-Stalin agreed with Lenin on how to solve Russian continual land problems, by the creation of collective farms and the mechanisation of agriculture. Stalin knew it would depend on a State controlled system of agriculture. This meant exterminating millions of people- he chose the kulak.
- With Kulaks out of the way the rest of the peasantry could either join the collective farms or seek work in towns. Anyone resisting would suffer deportation to Siberia, to provide communism with its slave labour.
- For those who joined collective farms soon found out what sacrifices they would have to go under for the welfare of their country. They had to produce more crops but had to consume less food, this is how Stalin created his artificial surplus, which he could sell abroad to buy foreign goods.
- Full-scale collectivisation began in 1929, before each region had to be de-kulakized and converted to collectives. Two kinds of farming institutions developed, one was the Sovkhoz or state farming, where the workers received wages paid by state officials; and the other one was Kolkhoz or collective farms where the land was granted to a group of peasant families.
-The Motor Tractor Stations
- During collectivisation party officials would visit a group of villages, round up the kulaks and supervise the collectivisation of all fields and livestock. As soon as the peasants heard of their arrival, they would slaughter their animals and eat them, they were afraid of what Kolkhoz would do to it.
-During the Great Famine of 1932-33 millions of people died from malnutrition and disease.
-Most of Russian peasants that survived the Great Famine did so thanks to Stalin, for allowing them to retain small plots of land around their cottages.
-The Collective farm had come to dominate Russian agriculture and private property on a large scale virtually disappeared.
SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY: STALIN AND INDUSTRY
- Stalin's overriding objective was the rapid industrialisation of the USSR.
- The first five-year plan (1928-1933)
The state would control over every aspect of the economy. This plan was aimed to create an industrial base for further development (to make the USSR industrialised). It aimed to achieve rapid expansion of coal and steel production, electrical power, transport etc. It called for a 20% per annum increase, which was not realistic, since peasants had little skill and central planning involved a vast army of then inexperienced bureaucrats. There was in fact very little planning, as such, from the beginning. Stalin's government exhorted and terrorised the workforce into ever-greater effort towards ever-greater production. The plan put emphasis on quantity not quality. Little attention was given to living and working conditions, and unemployment relief was ended. People could lose their jobs because they were sick. Factory managers who were unable to meet their targets might find themselves on trial as enemies of the state, and secret police were sent into factories to spy on the managers and report on their performance.
Propaganda played a big part in the first FYP success, a propaganda campaign encouraged worker to take pride in carrying out the Plan because it would strengthen the USSR and make life better for everyone, it also boasted about success, which sometimes exaggerated figures. But still the first FYP was an extraordinary achievement.
Standard of living decreased as a result, but a solid industrial base was developed
- The second five-year plan (1933-1938)
The aim of this plan was more realistic 14% increase in production. It was successful because the work force was more experienced; government control over labour increased and the planners had gained more experience. Over-production occurred in some parts of the economy and under-production in others. However growth in sectors such as the consumer goods was less successful, wages didn’t increase and more and more resources were aimed at weapon production.
-The third five year plan (1938-1943)
The third FYP placed more emphasis on the production of luxuries like radio's and bicycles. This plan was obstructed by the need to speed up armament and the 1941 German invasion.
- To conclude the five-year plans succeeded in turning the USSR into a major industrial power over a short period of time. There was virtually no unemployment. An elementary health service began to emerge and education improved. For most Russians the FYPs meant hard work, poor conditions and the loss of freedom. Living standards in 1941 were lower then in 1928. Also, while the west was abandoning heavy industries, moving to modern technology and responding to consumer demands, Russia was still concentrating on mass employment in heavy industry. Given the shortage of qualified personnel, the deportation of many thousand of killed men to labour camps was a serious loss.
STALIN AND TERROR
-Terror did not start with Stalin
-Cheka, the secret police, was replaced by the NKVD in 1922 for internal affairs. In 1923 the OGPU split away for the NKVD, but merged back in 1934, to act as Stalin's instrument of terror.
-1 December 1934 a young communist murdered Sergei Kirov, a member of the Politburo. From 1934-8 Millions died and millions suffered imprisonment because they were suspected of being involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the leadership, Stalin used this excuse for purging soviet society.
- Stalin eliminated every possible rival inside the Communist Party, in industry, in the universities and in the armed services.
- Stalin, Bukharin and Radek were busy creating a constitution for soviet people, which was presented in December 1936. Twin principles of collective agriculture and state controlled industry, and it guaranteed full democratic rights to all soviet citizens.
- Yet thousands of Soviet citizens had already lost all of their democratic rights. The NKVD was arresting highest and lowest in the land. They paraded the most prominent communist before the public, in show trials where the accused made confessions of guilt that astonished the rest of the world.
- One million people out of the eight and a half million arrested were shot. By 1939 about 7 million people were held in Soviet prison camps.
- Because the Great Purge swallowed up so many leading engineers and technologist, industrial production slowed down in 1938.
-The Soviet armed forces suffered immense losses. This was because many senior officers were killed during the Great Purge.
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE USSR
-The foreign policies were dominated by two features: hostility towards the capitalist world, because of Marxist ideology and foreign intervention on the side of the whites during the Civil War and secondly Expansionist nationalism. The Bolsheviks revised their foreign policy when it came clear that the rest of the capitalist world would not undergo revolution. The revised policy was the belief that in the long run world revolution was inevitable, help to those struggling against western imperialism, exploiting the rivalries between the capitalist states and the use of the Comintern to encourage labour unrest.
