The Civil War and Lenin
- Created by: TaylorYS
- Created on: 07-06-19 12:37
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- The Civil War and Lenin
- The Bolsheviks in Power
- Distribution of Power
- October Revolution, though framed as All Power to the Soviet, was in fact a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks
- The Bolsheviks were in a position to make up their own rules
- Lenin's Decrees
- Decree on Peace
- Appeal to warring nations for peace without annexations
- Bolsheviks needed to make peace with Germany to survive
- Decree on Land
- Private ownership of land abolished
- Mineral wealth was for exclusive state use
- High level science land turned over to the state
- Decree on Worker's Control
- Accepted workers' takeover of factories, but instructed strict order and discipline
- Vesenkha
- Nationalised banks and railways
- Cancelled foreign debts
- Improved transport systems
- Decree on Nationalisation
- Brought practically all major industrial enterprises in Russia into central government control
- Decree on Peace
- Distribution of Power
- Constituent Assembly
- All-Russian Constituent Assembly went ahead in November as planned
- Bolsheviks were outvoted by the SRs nearly 2 to 1
- Bolsheviks only won 24% of total vote
- Gained barely a quarter of the seats
- Dissolution by Lenin
- Originally supported it to weaken the PG's authority
- Lenin was against democracy and compromise
- After 1 day's session, the assembly was dissolved at gunpoint by the Red Guards
- Resistance was futile and there were no democratic bodies in Russia for another 70 years
- Lenin gave the reason that the people's will had been asserted in October, the assembly was not needed
- Lenin was always prepared to back up his ideas with force
- After 1 day's session, the assembly was dissolved at gunpoint by the Red Guards
- The war and widespread opposition meant Bolshevik position was precarious
- Lenin was unphased, maintaining that this precarious position required stern measures
- Reaction
- Caused unease within the Bolshevik party
- Foreign socialists and communists complained massively
- Lenin was unphased, maintaining that this precarious position required stern measures
- All-Russian Constituent Assembly went ahead in November as planned
- Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
- Views
- Lenin
- Impossible to fight on due to military exhaustion
- German loss = Russia regain occupied land
- Germany continued to finance the Bolsheviks after October, so a settlement was in their best interests
- Reasons for signing:
- "Russia can offer no physical resistance because she is materially exhausted by three years of war"
- Called those willing to fight on 'romanticists'
- Russia would soon be in a position to reclaim lost territories
- Trotsky
- Understood that Russia had no chance of a successful war, but hoped for revolution in Germany following failures on the Western Front
- Wanted peace talks to be protracted to take advantage of Austro-German mutinies
- Lenin
- Terms
- Large amount of territory containing Russia's major grain source was ceded to the Germans
- 386,000 square miles of land lost, containing 45 million population
- 3 billion roubles in war reparations
- Left Communists
- Condemned the signing
- Lenin's insistence on party loyalty persuaded them to reluctantly accept
- German collapse on the Western Front made the terms essentially meaningless, and Lenin's gamble paid off
- Strengthened Lenin's hold of the party, and left SRs were expelled and outlawed
- German collapse on the Western Front made the terms essentially meaningless, and Lenin's gamble paid off
- Views
- Russian Civil War
- Participants
- Reds
- The Bolsheviks
- The Workers and Peasants Red Army (Kronstadt Sailors, Red Guards, volunteering workers and imperial army soliders)
- Aims
- To stay in power
- The Bolsheviks
- Whites
- Liberals, former Tsarists, Nationalists, Separatists, SRs and other moderate socialists
- Aims
- Few wanted the Tsar back
- Most wanted military dictatorship to defeat the Bolsheviks
- Others wanted to see a Constituent Assembly
- All Anti-Bolshevik, but deeply divided
- Greens
- Peasant armies + deserters from other armies
- Aims
- Some supported Bolsheviks some didn't
- Mostly served to protect their own areas and for independence
- Reds
- Course
- Czech Legion
- Fierce fighting with Soviets as they trecked across Russia to rejoin the allies on the Western Front
- The soviets tried to disarm them, and the Legion managed to take control of the Trans Siberian Railway
- White forces grew around them
- The soviets tried to disarm them, and the Legion managed to take control of the Trans Siberian Railway
- Fierce fighting with Soviets as they trecked across Russia to rejoin the allies on the Western Front
- Attempted assassination of Lenin
- Fanny Kaplan left him with a bullet lodged in his neck, contributing to his death 6 years later
- Challenge from the SRs
- SR organised a military coup in Moscow following Brest-Litovsk
- Violently crushed by Bolshevik artillery units
- SR organised a military coup in Moscow following Brest-Litovsk
- Kronstadt Rising
- Manifesto
- New Soviet election held by secret ballot
- Freedom of speech, press, and assembly
- Rights for trade unions and end of special rationing for communists
- Crushed
- Ultimatum
- All Kronstadt lay down arms or be disarmed and surrendered
- Kronstadt rejected the ultimatum, and the Cheka and Red Army stormed the base
- The sailors resisted fiercely, but were eventually suppressed
- Ringleaders were condemned and shot
- The sailors resisted fiercely, but were eventually suppressed
- Ultimatum
- As a result, Lenin softened the harshness of War Communism, and introduced the NEP
- New Economic Policy
- Features
- Central economic control relaxed
- Requisitioning replaced with tax in kind
- Peasants could keep surplus and sell for profit
- Public markets restore and money reintroduced as a means of trading
- Ban on Factions
- Trotsky and others saw repression as the proper revolutionary strategy, and were disturbed that capiotalism was now being tolerated
- Non compliance now meant immediate expulsion
- Economic Results
- Clear recovery in production figures (Grain Harvest, Factory output, Electricity, and wage)
- Bolsheviks still commanded the heights of the economy
- Still high unemployment in urban areas
- Features
- New Economic Policy
- Manifesto
- Czech Legion
- Features/Means of Control
- War Communism
- Grain Requisitioning
- Banning of Private Trade
- Nationalisation of Industry
- Labour Discipline
- Rationing
- Impact
- Industry
- Military needs had priority, so industry suffered
- Hyperinflation
- Agriculture
- GR exasperated peasants refusual to conform
- Grain taken by force from kulaks especially
- Grain Hoarding was common with hopes of selling
- Famine
- Over 5 million starved to death in the civil war
- The USA provided food for 10 million Russians
- Tambov Rising
- SR Antonov led peasants armies in Tambov, attacking requisitioning squads and stealing their weapons
- Eventually crushed by the Red Army
- SR Antonov led peasants armies in Tambov, attacking requisitioning squads and stealing their weapons
- Industry
- Red Terror
- Cheka
- Secret police to destroy opposition
- Forced enemies of the revolution into labour camps
- Unlimited powers of arrest, detention and torture
- Had to exterminate enemies of the working class
- Murder of the Tsar and his Family
- Gave the Tsarists nothing to fight for
- Secret police to destroy opposition
- Show Trials
- Leading members of outlawed parties put on humiliating public trials, the law became a means of political control
- Cheka
- Red Army
- Crushed trade unions through bans on questioning orders, non negotiable rates of pay, and severe penalties for poor production levels
- Trotsky imposed death penalty for desertion or disloyalty
- Imposed conscription under the slogan "Everything for the Front"
- War Communism
- Reasons for Bolshevik Victory
- White Weakness
- Poor unity, armies fought individually and for different aims
- Widely scattered geographically, unable to put pressure on the enemy
- Round the edges in lesser populated areas, movement of men and resources and communication were difficult
- Too reliant on supplies from abroad
- Lacked a strong leader, and were cruel with no results, putting off soldiers
- Red Strengths
- Maintained control of central areas, in control of inner communications and supply lines
- Control of Petrograd and Moscow, and control of the railway network
- Strong hold of industrial centres meant access to munitions and resources
- Organisation and leadership of Trotsky was outstanding
- Prevented Whites from concentrating large forces
- Defended internal lines of communication
- Prevented Whites maintaining regular supplies
- Exhausted enemies as an attacking force and then drove them to surrender
- Brutality
- Both sides used terror to crush opposition
- Offered defeated troops and neutrals enlistment or execution
- White atrocities provided Red propaganda opportunity
- Maintained control of central areas, in control of inner communications and supply lines
- White Weakness
- Participants
- Lenin's Time in Power
- Strengths
- Ruthlessness
- Inspired loyalty
- Political opportunism and self belief
- Was never deterred
- Ideology into reality and workability
- Weaknesses
- Disregard to human cost
- Unnecessary suffering
- Bolshevik state more oppressive than Tsarism
- Not open to any other political ideas
- Hostility to capitalism denied sustained economic growth
- Disregard to human cost
- Strengths
- The Bolsheviks in Power
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