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Summary Lenin
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A brief overview of Lenin as a political leader.
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LENIN: creating the Bolshevik stateHow did the Bolsheviks consolidate their power from October 1917?
Sovnarkom – explain how this led to stability.
Had a female in the cabinet Alexandra Kollontai.
Decrees – explain how this tackled the issue of opposition and support.
Peace treaty – how did this consolidate their power.
terror
Czech Legion gets into a fight with the reds which causes a civil war. This soon turns into a global conflict with whites
and greens supporting the Czechs who just wanted to leave the Eastern Front.
1918-1921 civil war between the reds and everybody else
Peace treaty consolidates his power through fulfilling a promise. This leas to massive loss for Russia and then civil
war which could not be foreseen.
Cheka – secret police of the Bolsheviks supported by the red army which is red by Trotsky (minister of war). Felix
Dzerzhinsky.
28th September – presentations on the civil war
WHY THE REDS WON + SUFFERING DURING THE WAR
18/09/23
In what ways did Lenin consolidate their power in the few months after the revolution?
terror / decrees / Sovnarkom / peace treaty
Facts about Lenin:
born into a middle-class family.
politically radicalised after his brother was executed due to the involvement in the plot to assassinate Alexander
II.
1889 declared Marxist.
Advocated for Russian defeat in WW1 arguing it would hasten the political revolution he desired.
March 1918 – treaty of Brest-Litovsk (pragmatic move)
2nd October – after the war
War communism
Grain requisitioning – people are starving (5million of famine - cannibalism). Have to use the military and the
cheka to collect the grain.
Banning of private trade (ideological) – everyone gets the same, but some don’t make a profit which decreases
productivity (what’s the point of quality?).
Nationalisation of industry – non-competitive and basic but is consistent and balances pay (only ones in the
market).
Labour discipline – forcing productivity with capped wages (cheka).
Rationing
, Impact of war communism:
By 1921 the soviet economy was in ruins.
The transport system was on the point of total collapse.
Factories could not get the materials they needed, and most industrial enterprises had ceased production.
Grain production had fallen to dangerous levels.
Famine was rampant in the south.
Disease was widespread.
Large sections of Russian society were not willing to put up with the continuation of war communism.
‘soviets without communists’
The main threat comes from the peasantry.
With the war over and no possibility of a white victory the hostility to grain requisitioning in a series of violent
revolts (Tambov revolt)
Martial law was imposed in Moscow and Petrograd
Strikers in Petrograd were supported by sailors in Kronstadt (heroes of 1917)
Lots of division within the Bolshevik party
Shylapknikov and Kollontai wanted workers to be given more control over their own affairs – they
criticised Trotsky’s plan to make the trade unions agencies of the state.
Introduction of the NEP
End to grain requisitioning, tax on harvests, denationalisation of small-scale enterprises
Strengths Weaknesses
Promoted agricultural production Undermined Lenin’s authority
Promoted economic balance – went from near collapse Began fractional struggles between party members
to being resuscitated
Industrial reconstruction – large scale industry reaching Difficulty in wage payments
75% of pre war rates
Create industrial stepping stones to socialism. Brought back the market, prostitution, gambling, drugs
and other affronts to public morality.
Brought back the market
1. Explain the term state capitalism - the state acts as the dominant economic player and uses markets primarily for
political gain
2. Why was War Communism so unpopular? - By 1921, total industrial output had fallen to around 20 per cent of
its pre-war levels and rations had to be cut. Diseases such as cholera and dysentery were rife and a typhus epidemic
swept through the cities and caused the death of more than three million in 1920. Some workers went on strike,
which only made matters worse. Others ignored the passport system and braved the armed guards stationed on the
city boundaries to flee to the country in the hope of finding food.
3. List the ways in which War Communism weakened Russia. (see above)
4. Detail what the NEP was. state control of transport, banking, and heavy industry, such as coal, steel and oil,
continued, the NEP allowed for the private ownership of smaller businesses (usually through cooperatives and
trusts) and permitted private trade. Rationing was ended and industries had to pay their workers from their profits.
There was an end to the requisitioning of grain and although peasants were still required to give a proportion of
their produce to the State, as a form of tax, they were permitted to sell any surplus.
5. Explain the term the scissor crisis - what does this tell us about workers response to the NEP? The Scissors Crisis
was an incident in early 1923 Soviet history during the New Economic Policy (NEP), when there was a widening gap
("price scissors") between industrial and agricultural prices. October 1923 where industrial prices were 276 percent
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