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Summary Chapters 2 - 6. Peter Kenez 'A History of the Soviet Union from the beginning to the End'
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A summary of chapter 2 - 6 of Peter Kenez' book 'a History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End.'
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Chapter 2: The Russian Revolution 1917-1921Events within February Revolution 1917:
February 23: International Women’s Day. Mostly women demonstrated for bread. Different from
before, demonstrations continued and the number of protesters grew. Cossacks (traditional
defenders aristocracy) were disobedient —> anarchy, senseless killings.
Spontaneous, unorganized and unexpected uprising in Petrograd and mutiny of troops
February 27: Tsarist government resigned.
March 1: Order Number One. This called for soldiers to form soviets, got rights of citizenship etc.
Was said that this order was most important for destroying the fighting capacity, officers blamed
socialists for this.
March 3: Nicholas abdicated, brother Michael did not accept to follow him up. After 300 year
Romanov dynasty ended.
It was more the soldiers refusal to obey, than a workers demonstration. They lost their faith in the
system because of the mismanagement of war. War was main explanation for disobedience
officers: wanted to prevent civil war because defending in WWI was more important. In WWI many
losses, shortages and war-wearyness.
Tsar had 2 enemies: workers&soldiers(against oppression) and liberals(lost faith in government).
Established separate institutions. Coalition of two revolutionary forces between whom tension
existed. Division of tasks.
- Provisional Government: Duma politicians, liberal elites. Represented privileged Russia mostly.
Liberals actually wanted to maintain the monarchy. Less power than the Soviet. Miliukov first
leader, then Guchkov.
- in 1917 one could not build governing institutions on the basis of liberal principles.
- Lack of legitimacy: authority without power
- Petrograd Soviet of Workers Deputies: grass roots mass meetings, socialists. Could put
pressure on the government due to large number it represented. Power without responsibility.
Lenin said that socialists didn’t see themselves as ministers and therefore entrusted liberals with
power. Kerensky: chairman of Soviet and portfolio of justice in the government. Foot in both
camps.
Different approaches towards problems:
Civil rights and elections Constituent Assembly
Continuation of the war: soldiers were tired of fighting in a war with no end, they did not care
about national interest. PS wanted only defend Russian territory and did not want to annex foreign
territories. PG wanted to stay faithful to allies, failed to recognize dissatisfaction among peasant
soldiers.
Crisis in April: PG said that it would fight until a decisive victory. After this crisis
new coalition government.
Crisis of June: Kerensky’s offensive failed. Thought moral in army would revive, did
not happen.
July: regiment mutinied and others joined them. —> Kerensky became premier.
Appointed Kornilov as commander in chief of the Russian armies to restore order,
but mutinied. This all eventually became disastrous for the PG.
Question of land redistribution: serfs liberated in 1861 got half of the land they had cultivated
before, wanted all the land. Also population grew what made the demand for land increase.
Land reforms during war seemed irresponsible; effectiveness of troops would have
ended.
Government didn’t posses machinery to carry out the process.
Liberal ministers took it for granted that landlords had to be compensated for their
property.
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, Solution seemed to be to make the age-old village commune and elected district
committees became rulers of the village —> degree of self-government. Led to land
seizures by these communed who would divide it then among their members.
Position of non-Russian national minorities: increasing desire of national minorities for
autonomy.
Imperial Russia was a multinational empire. Poles wasn’t a difficulty, more the
Ukrainians, who set up The Rada.
Prospects of this ‘novel constitutional situation’ for a liberal democratic revolution? Non.
Role of the Bolsheviks in the revolution:
Bosheviks wanted to change the war into a civil war of exploited versus exploiters.
Lenin returned to Russia with help from the Germans, who hoped that his plans would contribute to
the disintegration of the government. Did not mind taking money from the Germans, short-term
benefit, believed that interests of social revolution outweighed nationalist concerns.
April theses: Bolsheviks should not support the existing political order, but must work to overthrow
the government which was a mouthpiece for bourgeoisie. Here the party was organized and
radicalized. Difference from marxism: the country did not need a long period of capitalist
development but social revolution could immediately take place.
Bolshevik Party represented the interests of workers, who had become class conscious and
therefore supported the party. Radicalization was because of deteriorating economy. Support grew
steadily during 1917. With ups-and-downs gaining majority in the Soviets (such as that Lenin was a
German agent). Slogans: peace, land, bread and all power to the soviets
Anarchy was the main source of strength. Lenin’s extremism coincided with people’s desperatism
After Kornilov mutiny showed that they had considerable force. Support for Bolsheviks increased
and eventually they controlled the soviets.
The October Revolution
Governmental authority disintegrated. Dissenters already published the date when the B would act,
the government could not defend itself:
The military men were recently defeated and disappointed in the Russian people.
Underestimated the Bolsheviks, but hated Kerensky’s liberal regime as well. Were
too occupied with righting the foreign foe.
The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries underestimated differences
between themselves and the new government. Elections for Constituent Assembly
were coming and they wanted to place themselves in the same corner as the
bolsheviks.
October 24-25: taking of power by Bolsheviks in name of the Soviets, and establishment of new
government (Sovnarkom). Took over key public buildings. Also Winter Palace where the provisional
government was meeting (without Kerensky). Was yet another crisis, not necessary a revolution.
First actions were met with mixed feelings: decrees on peace and land (pos) but also Treaty of
Brest and dissolution of Contituent Ass. (neg) Lenin presented his decree on peace and land to the
Congress of the Soviets: 1. Commencing negotiations for a just and democratic peace. 2. Land
had national property, but allowed peasants to cultivate it as their own. —> recognized land
confiscations. It would make the establishment of a socialist society more difficult, however it was
their main argument to convince the Bolsheviks they were on their side.
Wanted to reorganize society and politics and remake humanity. An interplay between the
demands of the unexpected reality and an ideology to which they were deeply committed.
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,New government: Council of Commissars. Headed by lenin. Exclusively Bolshevik body, did not
allow concessions to admit those who had opposed taking power. Some difficulties:
- Illiterate, anarchy, hungry society
- Attacks from German army: negotiations. Didn’t want a foreign policy because of
hostility. Bukharin was opposed a treaty because they believed German soldiers
would refuse to fight to their Russian comrades which would cause a German
revolution. But Lenin signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty which assured survival of his
regime.
- Consituent Assembly: January 1918, expressed anti-Bolshevik sentiments.
Ideology: Russian proletariat was in a position to break the chain of world capitalism as its
weakest link which would lead to a world revolution. Was used as solution for everything. Essence:
utopian drive with radical improvisation
Slow reaction by opponents of Lenin due to distrust in PG or army and underestimation of
Bolsheviks. Lenin allowed freedom of press. All non-Bolshevik newspapers disappeared from
territories under control of the revolutionaries.
The civil war
Bolsheviks versus the military counterrevolutionaries, or Whites versus Red. In summer 1918 the
beginning of armed hostilities. War communism: mobilized economy for the purpose of winning the
war by means of coercion. On the short run in was effective and factories produced enough.
Whites: revolutionary intellectuals and semi-intellectuals, who had suffered repression during the
tsarist regime and were committed to change on the basis of their deeply held Marxist beliefs. No
vision of a Future Russia, but just wanted to combat the Bolsheviks. Officers and the cossacks
(rich peasants who enjoyed self-government who felt their privileges threatened). The cossacks
was one of the most important force. Germans enabled whites to survive. The allies first assisted
the Whites, because they hated the Bolsheviks.
- Support of the church, armies better led and did not have fear of treason.
- Better agricultural lands, had to feed fewer people.
- Allied aid
—> Living conditions in White-held territories were better.
- Whites did not make an attempt to win over population with an attractive vision of
future. Rather based it on nationalism. It also alienated the national minorities. The
disintegration of the empire resulted in an extraordinary growth of national self-
consciousness.
Reds: the bolsheviks. Said that they were fighting against combined forces of world imperialism.
October 1919: reds stopped attack of whites. In 1920 it was clear the reds would win.
- Accepted the principle of national self-determinations as long as it served the
interest of the proletariat.
- Understood the needs of the moment and principles of revolutionary politics. And
understood the importance of mass mobilization.
- Trotsky and lenin used the expertise of the officers of the ex-imperial army. Build a
bigger army.
- Help of the Cheka: allowed only one political organization
Problem: they needed to feed the cities but had nothing to give the peasants in
exchange.
March 1921: compromised peace of Riga.
=> Red victory, but against a high price! ruined country, loss of mass support, harsh dictatorship
Bolsheviks fought for social equality and the misery imposed by war and war communism, reduced
inequality greatly.
3
, Chapter 3: New Economic Policies 1921-1929
In the 1920s the new regime gave opportunities to everyone to rise in the social hierarchy and a
degree of cultural pluralism was allowed. New Economic Policies (NEP): was seen as temporary.
Leninists accepted both war communism and the NEP.
The consequences of the revolution
A profound change in the relationship of classes in a very brief period. This was made possible due
to different things:
Misery due to war, revolution, and civil war.
War communism: free trade was not allowed, peasants had no incentive to
produce —> decline in agricultural production.
Revolution had abolished the distinction between the culture of the unprivileged and
the culture of the intelligentsia and the privileged. —> Peasants got land.
Peasants self-government in the form of the commune. Peasantry turned inward,
showing hostility towards outsiders. Resented Bolshevik policies. were also victims
of the general economic collapse. The village commune rather than the village
society made important decisions in the village; the Party disliked it because they
could not control it.
Workers were first volunteers for the Red Army. Workers was a small size group. Size reduced
even more because of the economic collapse: cities were inadequately supplied with food and
transportation system collapsed. All cities suffered.
The Introduction of the NEP
Peasants were more opposed the Whites than the Reds during the civil war. Anarchist bands best
represent the peasant interests. They fought against both Whites and Reds. (Makhno) According to
the Bolsheviks the peasants were infected by bourgeois private property consciousness, therefore
their hostility could be anticipated.
At the beginning of 1921 the Bolshevik Party lost also support of the working class; felt like new
government was not carrying out promises made in the revolution.
Kronstadt sailors were defeated and in effect the Bolsheviks repudiated some of the utopian goals
of revolution. During the crisis: abolition of requisitioning and the substitution of a tax in kind
(legalization of trade and traders). May 1921: law that nationalized all branches of industry was
withdrawn.
The Political System
Political system was based on responding to unforeseen and unforeseeable problems. Bolsheviks
saw themselves as backward compared to Europe. They saw the importance of propaganda and
mass mobilization. However, their ideology clashed with the wishes of the peasantry. The regimes
authority in the villages was exceptionally weak.
The party coexisted with the government. But after Lenin’s death the party came to surpass the
government in power and importance. Membership policy was adjusted and many people were
allowed. Consequence: majority of party had no experience in the party during the revolution and
the civil war. Democracy within the party disappeared. “Democratic centralism” was not viewed that
it would work. There was intolerance toward dissent
The establishment of the Bolshevik government, ended the importance of the Petrograd Soviet.
The soviets lost their autonomy. Bolsheviks removed mensheviks from the soviets and that way
expanded their power through the Soviets.
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