Bolshevik Consolidation of Power

Key ISSUES  DISSOLUTION OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY  THE TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK, 1918 * Russia lost a third of European Russia, from Baltic to the Black Sea, including Ukraine * a population of 45 million * three billion roubles war reparations

RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR  Lenin actually wanted war: Dominic Lieven:” the civil war did not occur by accident. In 1917 the other socialist parties, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were partly guided by their fear of and revulsion of civil war. In the winter majority of the Russians supported other than the Bolshevik party, so the civil war was inevitable for the consolidation of power

The result of the civil war  The reds =Bolsheviks won. They were fighting for their country, they opposed foreign interventions and could take advantage of weaknesses of the whites ( tsarist people, western countries.)  Effects; Military aspect within the bolshevik party increased, inner sections of the Bolshevik Party ( politburo and orgburo) got more power ( decisions had to be made quickly)  The principle of an international revolution was abandoned for a moment.

TERROR  Was it a necessary and unavoidable part of Marxism-Leninism?  Was there something totalitarian in Lenin himself?  Was this the only way to win the civil war and to consolidate the Bolshevik power?  Were these exreme methods justified by the huge number of problems faced by the Bolshevik Government after the October revolution?

Methods of terror  A) Cheka- ”all russian extraordinary commission for fighting counter- revolution, sabotage and speculation”  Led by Dzerzhinsky  Execution of Nicholas II and his family/July 1918  persecution against individuals and whole classes

b) The Red Army  Led by Trotsky ( commissar of war)  Military headquarters placed in a heavily- armed train, which travelled through-out Russia during the civil war  ex-tsarist officers enlisted together with political commissars ( dedicated communists)  No opposition tolerated, death sentence imposed for disloyalty and desertion

 Peasants conscripted into the army: the most loyal troops, heroic stories to inspire the people

Soviet Economy  State Capitalism Degree on land - Degree on workers´ control - Vesenkha ( supreme council of national economy) was set up to control the economy

SOVIET ECONOMY  WAR COMMUNISM ; EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE, SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ENOMIC HAD TO AIM FOR WINNING THE CIVIL WAR * harsh methods * degree of nationalisation, 1918 * military needs were given priority * hyper-inflation * bartering

 Lack of manpower in factories  In agriculture the aim was to make peasants to produce more food; they were supposed to give the surplus to the state * a myth of kulaks; ” rich peasants were hoarding their grain”; cheka units to countryside to confiscate the grain, violence used!

Requisitions  Terrorized countryside between → Lenin ordered the kulaks to be mercilessly supresses; public hangings..  THE RESULT: EVEN LESS FOOD BECAME AVAILABLE, NATIONAL FAMINE!  5-10 MILLION PEOPLE DIED, HELP FROM WESTERN COUNTRIES - LENIN welcomed the famine

The Kronstadt Rising, 1921  The Background  outbreaks of violence throughout 1920  Famine ( confiscation of peasant grain stocks)  Against severe methods  Bolshevik rule was loosing its touch on peasants

CREATION OF WORKERS´OPPOSITION  Led by Kollontai and Shlyapnikov  Petrograd workers joined Kronstadt sailors and demanded more democracy into the Russian society: - real elections/ other parties than communists to be permitted -freedom of speech and press - freedom of assembly - rights for trade unions

The programme  Release of leftist political prisoners  Special privileges for communist party members to be abandoned  Freedom of peasants to sell extra grain on their profit  Withdrawal of political commissars from factories

The result  The red army crossed the winter ice to Kronstadt→ sailors and workers were crushed down; Cheka hunted down the rebels and later on they were imprisoned or either killed..  Lenin learned his lesson; something had to be done to calm down the society→ INTRODUCTION OF NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP)

NEP  Relaxing of central economic control  Abandonment of requisitioning  A tax in kind introduced  Peasants to allowed to keep their food surpluses and sell them for a profit  Markets were restored  Money was restored

 ” lets give them tiny pieces of democracy to keep them satisfied” Trotsky opposed NEP; ”it was the first sign of the degeneration of Bolshevism” Lenin: ” on party unity”; no opposition tolerated! All other parties forbidden NEP was a success, but not a total one:Scissors Crisis, 1923

 E.g to get rid of the priests, kulaks and other counter-revolutionaries BUT BECAUSE OF THE OURBREAKS OF VIOLENCE; HE HAD TO INTRODUCE NEW ECONOMIC APPROACH

The Road to the power Struggle  One of the questions: how long the NEP would continue to operate?