InNo+kathryn_chang+10.25.10

Part Three: Lenin's Russia

Ch. 11: 'Peace At Any Price'

The First Decrees of Sovnarkom The Constituent Assembly The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
 * Sovnarkom**- Council of Peoples Commissars, the government that Lenin set up
 * Lenin as chairman began issuing degrees, or orders
 * 8 November 1917- a decree on land
 * they took 540 million acres of land away from the Tsar, the nobles, the church and other landlords
 * this was given to the peasants
 * 8 November- a decree on peace
 * Sovnarkom intended to make peace with Russia's enemies at once
 * 12 November- a decree on work
 * 8 hour a day and 48 hour week for all industrial workers, and laid down rules about overtime and holidays
 * 14 November- a decree on unemployment insurance
 * promised to give all workers against injury, illness and unemployment
 * 1 December- a decree on the press
 * banned all non-Bolshevik newspaper
 * 11 December- banned Russia's main liberal party
 * the Constitutional Democratic Party, and ordered the arrest of its leaders
 * 20 December- Lenin set up a political police force
 * 'All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to fight Counter-Revolution and Espionage', also called Cheka
 * dealt with opponents and enemies of the Bolsheviks
 * 27 December- a decree on workers' control
 * put all factories under the control of elected committees of workers
 * 27 December- a decree on banking
 * put all baks in Russia under Sovnarkom's control
 * 31 December- a decree on marriage
 * allowed couples to have non-religious weddings and made it easier to get a divorce
 * November 1917- elections were held for Russia's new parliament, the Constituent Assembly
 * the first free elections in Russian history
 * Bolsheviks were badly beaten
 * the Socialist Revolutionaries gained more seats than all the other parties put together
 * 18 January 1918- Constituent Assembly met for the first time
 * less than 24 hours the Sovnarkom ordered it to stop meeting
 * Bolshevik Red Guards with machine guns killed and wounded more than a hundred people who demonstrated in support of the Assembly outside
 * they also prevented the elected Deputies from entering the Assembly and closed it down permanently
 * Lenin believed that a quick end to war was needed if the Bolsheviks were to stay in power
 * otherwise, they would lose support from the army
 * 3 December 1917- a peace conference between Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary began at Brest-Litovsk, a town on the border with Germany
 * Leon Trotsky, Russia's COmmissar, or minister, for Foreign Affairs
 * at the peace conferance, he dragged out the talks for as long as he could, hoping that a socialist revolution would begin in Germany
 * with a socialist government in Germany, he thought that they could make a fair and democratic peace with each otehr
 * Trotsky span out the talks for nine weeks but no revolution began
 * February 1918- the German army advanced into Russia and got so close to Petrograd that Lenin decided to make peace at any price
 * The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany was one of the harshest treaties ever made
 * Russia had to give up all their western lands- Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine, and Georgia
 * they were the richest part of the country
 * Russia lost sixty-two million people (26 percent of the population), 27 percent of their farm land, 26 percent of her railways, 74 percent of her iron ore and coal
 * Russia also had to pay a fine of 300 million gold roubles to Germany
 * Russia was at peace, Lenin said that peace would give Russia 'breathing space' which will help them get a grip on the country
 * they barely got 'breathing space' because civil war started

Ch. 12: Civil War and Foreign Intervention

No sooner than the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany did their enemies inside of Russia started to fight them The Czech Legion Reds and Whites The Red Terror
 * serious fighting started in May 1918 when anti-Bolsheviks soldiers took control of the Trans-Siberian Railway (Russia's vital link between east and west)
 * May 1918- 45,000 Czech prisoners of war were being taken across Russia on trains to Vladivostok where they were going to be put on ships to be sent back to their homeland
 * one trainload of Czech got into a quarrel with the Soviet of a town on the railway
 * the quarrel became a fight and the Czech took control of the town
 * when the Bolshevik troops arrived, more trainloads of prisoners joined the fight
 * within two weeks, they took over all the important towns in the area
 * by the end of 1918, nearly all the Tans-Siberian Railway and the towns along its route were in Czech hands
 * Enemies of the Bolsheviks rushed to join the Czech Legion
 * the their protection they set up their own governments and claimed that they ruled Russia.
 * **Komuch**- the most important government, short for Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly
 * they quickly organized the enemies of the Bolsheviks into a People's Army which advanced on Moscow
 * on the way, they captured 650 million gold roubles in an attack on the government's gold reserve at Kazan
 * The Bolsheviks government, moved to Moscow and took desperate measures to protect itself
 * they first introduced conscription
 * meant that men aged eighteen to forty had to serve in a new Bolshevik army- the **Red Army**
 * Leon Trotsky was to organize it
 * his first problem was to find officers to lead the army, because most of the troops were raw recruits
 * his solution was to appoint former officers of the Tsar's army
 * if they refused, they were sent to prison camps and any officers who tried deserting to the enemy found his family taken hostage and kept in prison
 * Leon found 22,000 officers to command the 330,000 men of the Red Army
 * it was the Red Army 'Red' against the 'Whites' the enemies
 * they were called whites because white was the traditional color of the Tsar
 * not all Whites were supporters of the Tsar
 * many were Socialist Revolutionaries, others were democrats, some were landlords who had been thrown off their land, and others were nobles (anyone who opposed the Bolsheviks)
 * By the end of 1918- four White Armies were attacking the heartland of Russia
 * they were helped by foreign countries that were allies of the countries that Russia fought with in the Great War
 * the allies were angry at the Russia's withdrawal from the war and wanted to crush the Bolshevik government
 * Red Armies had to face the White Armies and foreign 'armies of intervention' from Britain, France, America and Japan
 * during fights, many thousands of people on both sides were killed, including civilians
 * among the many casualties were the ex-Tsar and his family, who were now prisoners of the Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, a town in the Ural Mountains
 * July 1918- it seemed as though the town was about to be captured by the Czech Legion
 * the Bolsheviks feared that the ex- Tsar and his family would be saved and would become the leader of the White Armies
 * they shot Nicholas dead, along with his wife Alexandra, their son Alexis, their four daughters and their servants
 * Lenin was also shot, three times, by a Socialist Revolutionary named Fanya Kaplan in August 1918, at point blank range while he was getting into a car in Moscow
 * the bullet entered his neck but then he survived and recovered in a few weeks
 * the Bolsheviks now thought that they needed ruthless methods to deal with the White enemies
 * within a week of the shots, Sovnarkom ordered the Cheka, the secret political police to ben a 'Red Terror'
 * Cheka, led by Felix Dzerzhinsky, had its headquarters in Lubyanka Street in Moscow
 * in the cellars, Cheka agents tortured prisoners to extract confessions before executing them
 * in the countryside, they hanged, beat, shot and burned anyone who helped the Whites or fought for them
 * before long, people feared their name, even amongst loyal Bosheviks
 * In the Red Army, Leon Trotsky carried out his own form of terror in 1918
 * Every scoundrel who incites anyone to retreat, to desert, or not to fulfil a military order, will be shot
 * every soldier of the Red Army who voluntarily deserts his post, will be shot
 * every soldier who throws away his rifle or sells part of his equipment will be shot
 * those guilty of harboring deserters are liable to be shot
 * houses in which deserters are found are liable to be burned down
 * When his soldiers started running away from a battle shortly after his order was made, Trotsky had one in ten of the soldiers shot by firing squad
 * not only was Trotsky a tyrant, he also was a good military leader
 * he spent much of the Civil War traveling from one area of the fighting to another
 * from his war train, he directed the movements of the Red Army, delivered supplies, gave encouragement, and dealt with troublemakers
 * he made sure that the army was an effective and united fighting force
 * Gradually, the Red Army began to win Civil War
 * 1919- foreign armies of intervention were withdrawn from Russia, leaving the White Armies to fight alone
 * the White ARmies never came together as a united force, so Trotsky was able to fight them one at a time
 * by the end of 1919- only isolated groups of Whites were still fighting

Ch. 13: 'One Step Backwards...' War Communism and the NEP

During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks took strict measures to organize industry and food supplies in the areas under their control 2 aims: to keep the Red Army supplied with food and weapons, and to introduce a system of communism (the equal sharing of wealth)- War Communism War Communism The New Economic Policy The 1923 Constitution Lenin's Death
 * five aspects
 * all factories with more than ten workers were nationalized
 * government body called Vesenkha (the Supreme Council of National Economy) decided what each industry would produce
 * all workers were under government control
 * military discipline in the factories, including death penalty for strikers
 * the unemployed were made to join 'Labour Armies', cutting trees or building roads
 * private trading was banned
 * peasants had to give their surplus food to the government
 * they could not sell for their profit
 * the government allowed money to lose its value through inflation
 * they abolished rents, railway fares, postal charges and many other money payments
 * in place of money, they were encouraged to barter
 * in cities food was strictly rationed
 * the war communism succeeded in their first aim (to keep the Red Army supplied with food and weapons
 * they failed in sharing Russia's wealth equally
 * in the countryside, many peasants decided that there was no point in growing more food than they needed for themselves (the government took away all the crops they grew)
 * in 1919- the peasants started to sow less grain and breed fewer animals
 * 1920- food shortage
 * 1921- terrible famine
 * starvation, cold weather and disease killed seven million Russians
 * 25 million Russians were living below subsistence level
 * March 1921- revolt of 10,000 sailors at **Kronstadt**, a naval base near Petrograd
 * they were loyal to the Bolsheviks before but now, they claimed that War Communism wasn't what the Bolsheviks promised in 1917 and got ready to attack Petrograd
 * Leon and the Red Army generals surrounded Kronstadt with 60,000 troops
 * they bombed the naval base and then attacked the sailors' headquarters
 * sailors were killed in a hand-to-hand fighting and the rest were captured and later shot by the Cheka
 * Lenin realized that they need a change in the policy to stop anymore risings
 * he introduced the New Economic Policy, NEP, in March 1921
 * peasants could sell their surplus food for profit again
 * peasants who increased their food production would pay less tax
 * factories with fewer than twenty workers would be given back to their owners
 * people could use money once again
 * Many Bolsheviks were shocked and Lenin said that a step backward would later become two steps forward
 * by 1925- NEP begun to work
 * production went back up to the level it had been at before the Great War, while industrial output increased dramatically
 * at the start of 1923- Russia gained a new constitution
 * the 1923 Constitution said that Russia was a 'Union of Soviet Socialist Republics'
 * the country was now a union of four republics- Russia, Byelorussia, the Ukraine and the Caucasus
 * each republic had its own government with control over such matters as public health, welfare and education
 * the national government in Moscow, Sovnarkom, retained control over national concerns such as the armed forces, industry, communications and the secret police
 * he did not live to see the USSR grow to be one of the great powers of the twentieth century world
 * 1922 and 1923- suffered a series of strokes
 * 1924- he died at the age of 53
 * his body was embalmed and put on display in a tomb in Red Square in Moscow
 * millions of visitors from all over the USSR and from other countries have queued to see Lenin's body, a sign that he was one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century

Summary The new government, Sovnarkom, with Lenin as chairman starts issuing decrees or orders and tries to make a peace treaty with Germany and ends up giving up all their foreign land. Then Civil War starts; the Czech Legion, containing Czech prisoners and the enemies of the Bolsheviks, along with some other foreign countries rebel against the Bolshevilks. The Red Terror begins where the Cheka tortures, hangs, beats, shoots, and burns people that helps the Whites, and Leon does his own kind of terror. The Bolsheviks made War Communism then abandoned that and made a new policy called the New Economic Policy.

Questions 1. What causes Lenin to make 'Peace at any Price'? 2. Who is Leon Trotsky and what does he do during this part 3? 3. Who is the Red Army and who is the White Army? 4. What leads to the Red Terror? 5. What does the NEP stand for and what does it say?

Awesomeness

media type="custom" key="7299851" A graph of which political group had how many seats in the Constituent Assembly. The Socialist Revolutionaries had the most seats, their number was bigger than all the other parties combined.

This is a picture of Leon Trotsky. He was Russia's Commissar, or minister, for Foreign Affairs and also the Red Army's military leader.