Pre-Revolution Russia

• Final true autocracy in Europe
• No representative political institutions
• Nicholas II became Czar in 1884
• Believed he had the divine right of kings
• Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
  • Defeat led to political instability

The Revolution of 1905

• Rapid growth of (discontented) working class
• Vast majority of workers concentrated in St. Petersburg and Moscow
• Little help from the countryside
  • Impoverished peasants
• No individual land ownership
  • Rural Famine

Conservatism Continues: 1905-1917

• Czar neglected the Duma
• Political parties suppressed
  • Only token land reform was passed
• Nicholas became increasingly remote as a ruler
• Numerous soviets began to appear

Alexandra: The Power Behind the Throne

• Even more blindly devoted to autocracy than her husband
• She was under the influence of Rasputin
• Origins of Rasputin’s power - ?
• Scandals surrounding Rasputin served to discredit the monarchy

World War I: “The Last Straw”

• War revealed the ineptitude and arrogance of the country’s aristocratic elite
• Corrupt military leadership had contempt for ordinary Russian people
• Average peasants had very little invested in the War
• Ill-trained, ineffective officers, poorly equipped (Russia was not ready for ind. war) = mass desertions and 2 million casualties by 1915
  • Result: Chaos and Disintegration of the Russian Army

The Collapse of the Imperial Government

• Nicholas left for the Front (September, 1915)
• Alexandra and Rasputin threw the government into chaos
  • Complete mismanagement of the wartime economy
    • Industrial production plummeted
    • Inflation and starvation were rampant
    • Cities were overflowing with refugees
• Alexandra and other high government officials accused of treason
• Rasputin assassinated (December, 1916)
• Cities became a hotbed for political activism
  • This was ignited by serious food shortages in March 1917, esp. in St. Petersburg

The March Revolution: March 12, 1917

• Origins of the revolution
  • Food riots and strikes
• Duma declared itself a Provisional Government (March 12)
• Czar ordered soldiers to intervene
  • Instead they joined the rebellion
    • The Czar thus abdicated on March 17
• Menshevik, Alexander Kerensky headed the Provisional Government, along with Prince Lvov
  • Very Popular Revolution
  • Kerensky favoured gradual socialist reform
    • He saw the war effort as a major priority

Kornilov Affair

• General Lavr Kornilov attempted to overthrow Provisional Government with military takeover
• Kerensky prevented this takeover by freeing many Bolshevik leaders from prison and supplied arms to many revolutionaries

The Petrograd Soviet

• Leftists in St. Petersburg formed the Petrograd Soviet
  • Which they claimed to be their legitimate government
• Germany was aware of the Russian situation and began to concentrate on the Western Front
• Germany even granted Lenin "safe passage" in order to return Russia (April, 1917)
  • Allowing Lenin to create a revolution

Soviet Political Ideology

• More radical and revolutionary than the Provisional Government
• Most influenced by Marxist socialism
• Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Vladimir Lenin: Founder of Bolshevism

• His Early Years
  • Exiled to Siberia (1897)
• Devoted to Class Struggle and Revolution
• Moved to London in 1902 and befriended Leon Trotsky
• What is to be Done?
  • Stated that a vanguard party is required to lead a revolution
    • This divided the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party into two factions
      • Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Lenin Steps into This Vacuum

• Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd
• A tremendously charismatic personality
  • Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks promised "Peace, Land, and Bread." ^{[1] [2]}
  • “All Power to the Soviets”
  • He preached that the war was a capitalist/imperialist war that offered no rewards for the peasants/workers; he also believed the war was over with the czar’s abdication
• Bolshevik party membership exploded; their power was consolidated
• Lenin formed the Military-Revolutionary Council and in May 1917 he urged the Pet. Soviet to pass Army Order #1
  • This gave control of the army to the common soldiers
    • Discipline thus collapsed, and Kerensky was undermined

The November Revolution: Nov. 6, 1917

• This was the ideological aspect of the revolution
• The coup itself planned by Leon Trotsky had gained the confidence of the army
• All private property was abolished and divided among the peasantry
• Largest industrial enterprises nationalized
• Political Police organized called the CHEKA
• Revolutionary army created with Trotsky in charge called the " Red Army”
• Bolshevik Party renamed Communist Party of the Soviet Union (March 1918)
• Lenin’s first task was to get Russia out of the war
  • To concentrate on economic reform
• The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiated with the Germans
  • Giving them much Russian territory, population, and resources
• Civil War: 1917-1920
  • Complete breakdown of Russian economy and society

The Reasons for the Reds victory:

• The Reds occupied the strategic center of the nation; the Whites were on the fringes.
• The 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
  • Strict military discipline (e.g. deserters were shot)
  • Made use of czarist officers and their military experience
• Lenin made use of Revolutionary Terror (Cheka – a secret police force)
  • Kept the citizens in line
  • They were responsible for killing the Czar and his family, including the youngest daughter, Anastasia (1918)
• “ War Communism”
  • Period of strict government and economic control
• Foreign intervention (eight western nations, notably France, aided the Whites)
  • Promoted a sense of nationalism that aided the Reds.
  • Lenin used this as a propaganda device
  • The intervention of the western nations was based on ideological grounds
    • They feared communism

End of Civil War

• Reds emerge victorious in 1921
• Lenin renames country USSR ( United Soviet Socialist Republic)
• Lenin implements NEP ( New Economic Policy)
  • “One step back to go two steps forward”
• Small scale capitalism to jumpstart the stagnated Russian economy

The New Economic Policy

• An attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry thru a free market system
• Many dissidents were shipped off to the gulags
• Lenin was presumably ready to return to Marxist principles when the NEP did work
  • 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

Leon Trotsky

• Opposed the NEP
• Intellectual, head of the Red Army
• Favored the doctrine of World Revolution
• Felt that the USSR could not survive as the sole communist state
• The USSR must therefore seek to export revolution to world

Josef Stalin

• Supported the NEP
• Favored “Socialism in One Country”
• Believed the USSR should strengthen itself and lead the communist world by export
• Became the Party’s General Secretary in 1922
  • Appointed many assistants crucial to Stalin’s rise
• Power struggle lasted until 1928, when Stalin’s complex system of alliances and ability w/ realpolitik allowed him to succeed

Stalin Prevails

• Trotsky was forced into exile and eventually murdered in Mexico City in 1940
• Stalin went on to condemn all deviation from the party line
• He also created a “Cult of Lenin” and worked to connect himself to the fallen leader

See also

References

External links

• Museum of Communists
  • Vladmir Lenin
• Lenin's Works
  • Lenin's Speeches on Gramophone Records