1. The Russian Revolutions, Civil War, & the Early Soviet State
Unit 5 Chapter 28

2. Nicholas II: The Last Romanov Tsar [1894-1917]

3. Causes

4. 1. Early 20c: Russian Social Hierarchy

5. 2. Unprepared for WWI
Incompetent generals, untrained soldiers, lack of modern technology for warfare
Ran out of ammunition
Broken down railroads
Shortage of food

6. 3. Shortage of Food Everywhere
Factory workers staged demonstrations
Soldiers mutinied

7. February Revolution, 1917 Nicholas abdicates the throne
Parliament takes over
Social Revolutionaries speak out:
Mensheviks
Advocated electoral politics and redistribution of land to peasants
Bolsheviks
Led by Vladimir Lenin
Also advocated redistribution of land to peasants, but more radical

8. Vladimir Lenin Exiled to Siberia in 1897
Committed to ‘Class Struggle’ and ‘Revolution’
What is to be Done?
vanguard is required to lead the rev. (thus rev. from above)
Goal was to lead a revolution rather than wait for it
“The will of a class is sometimes fulfilled by a dictator”

9. “Peace, land & bread!”
Amnesty granted to all political prisoners in March of 1917
Lenin arrived in Petrograd
“All Power to the Soviets”
“Transfers of land to the peasants and factories to the workers”
He preached that the war was a capitalist/imperialist war that offered no rewards for the peasants & workers
Bolshevik party membership exploded; their power was consolidated

10. Germany helps Lenin
Answer with your partner…during The Great War, why would Germany want to help Lenin back into Russia???

11. October Revolution Russian soldiers began to desert
Nov. 6, 1917 (Oct. 24 on Russian calendar) soldiers took over Petrograd
Lenin had Mensheviks arrested and seized power
Private land nationalized; peasants had to hand over crops without compensation
Took over factories and drafted the workers into compulsory labor brigades
Cheka – secret police force

12. Civil War

13. Whites Whites 1918 – Bolsheviks officially become Communist Party
Most pressing problem after the November Revolution—opponents who had mounted a full-scale civil war
Whites
Lenin’s forces were known as the Reds
Lenin’s army was able to win this war by

14. Reasons for Red Victory
Reds occupied the strategic center of the nation; the Whites were on the fringes
White opposition was ideologically fragmented, including reformists, Mensheviks, Czarists; this wartime coalition proved to be incompatible.
Trotsky had increased the efficiency of the Red Army, introducing strict military discipline (deserters for example were shot) and making use of czarist officers and their military experience.

15. U.S.S.R. Red Army able to conquer Ukraine by end of 1920
By 1921 Civil War was over
Ukraine merged with Russia in 1922
1922 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics official
Georgia, Armenia, & Azerbaijan join up by end of 1922
Essentially all of old Tsarist empire is back with exception of Finland, the Baltic states, & Poland
BUT - Soviet land and economy were devastated, leading Lenin into a program of economic reform known as the NEP

16. Early Soviet State

17. The New Economic Policy
attempt to rebuild agriculture & industry through a free market system
Largest businesses remained under government control (railroads, banks, etc.)
many dissidents were shipped off to the gulags (Labor Camp)
The NEP did work & Lenin was ready to return to Marxist principles
But his health deteriorated after a 1922 stroke, and Lenin died in 1924: this created a power vacuum and a struggle between Trotsky and Stalin

18. Leon Trotsky intellectual, head of the Red Army
Favored the doctrine of World Revolution
felt that the USSR could not survive as the sole comm. state
the USSR must therefore seek to export revolution
opposed the NEP

19. Josef Stalin favored “Socialism in One Country”
the USSR should strengthen itself and lead the comm. world by example
as a pragmatist (practical person), he supported the NEP
experienced as a bureaucrat, he became the Party’s General Secretary in 1922: here he appointed many new communists—these allies were crucial to Stalin’s rise to power
power struggle lasted until 1928, when Stalin’s complex system of alliances allowed him to succeed and become an totalitarian dictator

20. Five-Year Plans
Goal—make Soviet Union the leading industrialized nation
New factories, mines, railroads, etc.
collectivization was implemented
Each collective expected to supply the government with fixed supply of food
peasant opposition was crushed/starved
after some protest, the kulaks were liquidated, starved in order to feed urban workers—the “terror famine” (8 million people)
Little to nothing left for farmers themselves
Severe famine between killing 5 million

21. Second Five-Year Plan
Emphasis on heavy industry – threat of Nazi Germany’s new industrialization
Machines increased fourteen-fold while consumer goods became scarce & food was rationed

22. The Great Purges Secret police created suspicion & fear
Stalin purged a million members of Communist Party
Even his personal generals
Executed
Millions sentences without trials
Sent to gulags – around a million a year died of exposure or malnutrition

23. Stalin was able to do this b/c the gov
Stalin was able to do this b/c the gov. was firmly in place & all threats had been eliminated through state terror & propaganda
Women in particular supportive
Stalin combined communism and dictatorship in this time, setting the tone for future comm. leaders
By 1941, the USSR was among the top 3 economic powers
Industrialized faster than any country ever
Able to avoid world Depression