Revision Diary

Background	• Underlying unpopularity of provisional government, and its failure to address its problems (esp. the war). • In July, there were Bolshevik riots – the 'July Days' – which were defeated. • In August, there was a Tsarist revolt led by General Kornilov - it was only defeated by the Bolsheviks (made them popular). • In Sept, the Bolsheviks took over the Petrograd Soviet (Trotsky became its President).
Meat	• 6 November 1917 Red Guards took over bridges and the telephone exchange. • 7 November 1917 Red Guards took over banks, government buildings, and the railway stations. The cruiser Aurora shelled the Winter Palace. That night (9.40 pm) the Red Guards took the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government leaders. Lenin announced the new Communist Government
End	• 8 November 1917 Lenin announced the new Communist Government

Why did the Bolsheviks Succeed?

(Perhaps Seven Powers Gave Lenin An Opportunity)

IF YOU ARE ASKED THIS, MAKE SURE YOU GIVE SOME FACTS AS WELL.

1. Provisional Government problems (remember the Prov Govt's failures - Government That’s Provisional Will Be Killed - when it was attacked, nobody fought to defend it).

2. Slogans (‘Peace, Bread, Land’ and ‘All Power to the Soviets’ = they got the public’s support. Membership grew to 2 million in 3 months.

3. Propaganda (including the newspaper Pravda (‘Truth’), got their ideas across).

4. Germans financed the Bolsheviks because they knew that Lenin wanted to take Russia out of the war = money to mount their campaigns.

5. Lenin (a professional revolutionary with an iron will, ruthless, brilliant speaker, a good planner with ONE aim – to overthrow the government = the Bolsheviks were well-led).

6. Army (the Red Guards, brilliantly trained and organised by Leon Trotsky = the military power to seize power - include the FACTS above).

7. Organisation (nb some historians claim that the Bolsheviks were POORLY organised, but they were well enough organised to take over. A central committee controlled by Lenin sent orders to the soviets, who gave orders to the factories and soldiers. Unlike the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks demanded total obedience from their members, so they were well-disciplined).

HOW DID LENIN IMPOSE COMMUNIST CONTROL?

The Civil War

Background	(Causes Civil War) • Challenge from opponents - Social Revolutionaries ejected from the Assembly, Mensheviks, Tsarists, army officers angry about Brest-Litovsk, landlords who had lost their land. • Czech prisoners of war mutinied, took control of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and attacked towards Moscow. • World - Briain, America and France - scared by Zinoviev and the Comintern's aim to cause world revolution, and angry because Russia had dropped out of WWI - attacked from Archangel, Ukraine, and Vladivostock.
Meat	• The war lasted 3 years. • White armies led by General Denikin (with an army of 60,000) attacked Russia from the west, General Yudenich from Finland, Admiral Kolchak from the east. • Yudenich got within sight of Petrograd and was only stopped by an inspired defence led by Trotsky. • The Tsar and his family were put to death. • Famine and disease - millions died. Many cruel atrocities - the Cheka murdered more than 7000 Whites.
End	• The Red Army defeated Kolchak in 1919 – after this the British, American and French armies went home. • The last White army in Russia was defeated in the Crimea in 1920. • The Red Army invaded Poland in 1921, but was defeated and driven back.

Why did the Bolsheviks Win the Civil War?

(Why The Bolsheviks Won The War)

IF YOU ARE ASKED THIS, MAKE SURE YOU GIVE SOME FACTS AS WELL.

1. Whites were disunited and thousands of miles apart, so Trotsky could fight them one at a time.

2. Trotsky was a brilliant war leader and strategist, so the Red Army had good tactics.

3. Belief - many Russians were Communists, who believed they were fighting for a better world. Others fought for them because they hated foreign (British, American and French) armies invading Russia = fervent soldiers.

4. War Communism - The Bolsheviks nationalised the factories. They introduced military discipline and strikes were made illegal. Food was rationed and peasants had to give food to the government = Bolshevik armies had the supplies they needed.

5. Terror - The Cheka murdered any Whites they found – more than 7000 people were executed, and Red Army generals were kept loyal by taking their families hostage – so the Bolsheviks were united.

6. Wherewithal - The Bolsheviks controlled Moscow and Petrograd (with their factories), the railways (vital), an army of 300,000 men, very strict army discipline, and internal lines of communication.

HOW SUCCESSFULLY DID LENIN IMPOSE A COMMUNIST SOCIETY?

Bolshevik Society

(Lenin Shows The Way)

IF YOU ARE ASKED THIS, MAKE SURE YOU GIVE SOME FACTS AS WELL.

1. Laws - land was taken from the tsar and nobles and given to the peasants, and factories were put under the control of elected committees of workers.

2. Society - Lenin banned religion, destroyed churches and killed priests., gave workers an 8-hour day, unemployment pay and pensions. There was a huge campaign to teach everyone to read, science was encouraged, Latin and History were banned. Free love, divorce and abortion were allowed.

3. Terror - ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ (the CHEKA arrested, tortured and killed all opponents/ Tsar and his family were killed/ all newspapers were censored.

4. War Communism (severe rules during the civil war): larger factories taken over by the government/ military discipline in factories and strikers shot/ Rationing, and peasants had to give all surplus food to the government. (Some Bolsheviks believed that 'war communism' was pure communism, and ought to go on forever.)

The Kronstadt Mutiny

Background	• Fanatical supporters of the Bolsheviks - July Days/ defeat of Kornilov/ November revolution/ closed down the Assembly for Lenin in 1918 - although many were Anarchists. • War Communism was very harsh - in January 1921, Lenin reduced rations to 1000 calories a day, leading to strikes in Petrograd
Meat	• On 1 March 1921, 15,000 soldiers in Kronstadt revolted. • The ‘Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee’ complained about the Cheka, torture and mass executions. • On 5 March, Trotsky attacked across the pack ice. • At first the young Bolshevik troops were driven back - so the Cheka used machine guns to keep them attacking. • Trotsky bombarded the Kronstadt fortress with artillery. • On 16 March an army of 50,000 crack Bolshevik troops attacked. In an 18-hour battle, 10,000 Red Guards were killed, but Kronstadt was taken.
End	• Hundreds of mutineers were imprisoned: 500 were shot on the spot, 2000 more were executed over the next few months. The rest were sent to Siberia. • Many socialists all over the world lost faith in the Bolshevik revolution, which they now saw as a repressive regime. • Lenin realised that he would have to relax War Communism and brought in the ‘New Economic Policy’.

This is a Paper 2 topic, so you need to have factual KNOWLEDGE IN DEPTH but also a degree of understanding which will allow you in the exam to write MULTI-CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS of the key issues.

Links

Hard copy of these revision notes

e-books on the Bolshevik Revolution , the Bolshevik Russia , the Civil War and the NEP

Lenin v Trotsky - VITAL comparison

Online revision sheet

Essays on Why Civil War broke out and Why the Bolsheviks won

Revision Diary

Bolshevik Revolution and Government

HOW WERE THE BOLSHEVIKS ABLE TO SEIZE POWER?

The Bolshevik Seizure of Power

Why did the Bolsheviks Succeed?

(Perhaps Seven Powers Gave Lenin An Opportunity)

1. Provisional Government problems (remember the Prov Govt's failures - Government That’s Provisional Will Be Killed - when it was attacked, nobody fought to defend it).

2. Slogans (‘Peace, Bread, Land’ and ‘All Power to the Soviets’ = they got the public’s support. Membership grew to 2 million in 3 months.

3. Propaganda (including the newspaper Pravda (‘Truth’), got their ideas across).

4. Germans financed the Bolsheviks because they knew that Lenin wanted to take Russia out of the war = money to mount their campaigns.

5. Lenin (a professional revolutionary with an iron will, ruthless, brilliant speaker, a good planner with ONE aim – to overthrow the government = the Bolsheviks were well-led).

6. Army (the Red Guards, brilliantly trained and organised by Leon Trotsky = the military power to seize power - include the FACTS above).

HOW DID LENIN IMPOSE COMMUNIST CONTROL?

Lenin's Government

(Great Big Communist Terror Union Wins)

1. Government (Elections held Nov 1917 for a new government – 'the Assembly'. The Bolsheviks won 175 seats and the Social Revolutionaries 370 seats. When it met in 1918, Lenin used the Red Guards to close it. Instead, Lenin ruled by decree - he called it the 'dictatorship of the proletariat').

2. Brest-Litovsk (the Decree on Peace promised to end the war with Germany. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave much of Russia’s best agricultural and industrial land to Germany – Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).

3. Communist laws (Land taken from the tsar and nobles and given to the peasants/ factories were put under the control of elected committees of workers/ Lenin also introduced laws to make Russian society communist (see below).

4. Terror (The CHEKA (secret police)/ Tsar and his family were killed at Ekaterinburg/ newspapers censored).

5. USSR (The Tenth Party Congress declared the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, and a constitution adopted in 1923).

6. War Communism (see below).

The Civil War

Why did the Bolsheviks Win the Civil War?

1. Whites were disunited and thousands of miles apart, so Trotsky could fight them one at a time.

2. Trotsky was a brilliant war leader and strategist, so the Red Army had good tactics.

3. Belief - many Russians were Communists, who believed they were fighting for a better world. Others fought for them because they hated foreign (British, American and French) armies invading Russia = fervent soldiers.

4. War Communism - The Bolsheviks nationalised the factories. They introduced military discipline and strikes were made illegal. Food was rationed and peasants had to give food to the government = Bolshevik armies had the supplies they needed.

5. Terror - The Cheka murdered any Whites they found – more than 7000 people were executed, and Red Army generals were kept loyal by taking their families hostage – so the Bolsheviks were united.

6. Wherewithal - The Bolsheviks controlled Moscow and Petrograd (with their factories), the railways (vital), an army of 300,000 men, very strict army discipline, and internal lines of communication.

HOW SUCCESSFULLY DID LENIN IMPOSE A COMMUNIST SOCIETY?

Bolshevik Society

1. Laws - land was taken from the tsar and nobles and given to the peasants, and factories were put under the control of elected committees of workers.

2. Society - Lenin banned religion, destroyed churches and killed priests., gave workers an 8-hour day, unemployment pay and pensions. There was a huge campaign to teach everyone to read, science was encouraged, Latin and History were banned. Free love, divorce and abortion were allowed.

3. Terror - ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ (the CHEKA arrested, tortured and killed all opponents/ Tsar and his family were killed/ all newspapers were censored.

The Kronstadt Mutiny

The New Economic Policy

Links