Euro chapter 3

How Lenin modified Marxism

Lenin argued that it was not necessary for Russia to experience a bourgeois period before it could move toward socialism, instead it could move directly into socialism from Feudalism. He also rejected the idea of a popular mass revolution and replaced it with the idea of a small revolutionary group (vanguard)

Lenin- Vladimir Ulianov (V. I. Lenin)

Russian Marxist was arrested for his activities in St Petersburg and sent into exile in Switzerland. Eventually assumed the leadership of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party. When the Provisional Government was formed in March of 1917, the German High Command (hoping to create disorder in Russia) shipped Lenin and a small group of his followers to Russia. There he issued his "April Theses" on April 20 with his own version of the Marxist theory and many promises to the Russian people. In July 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were falsely accused of inciting an attempt to overthrow the Provisional Government, and Lenin was forced to flee to Finland. Later he returned and in the October revolution was able to overthrow the Provisional Government in favor of a proletariat rule under the Bolsheviks.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

1918, treaty between the new Communist government and Germany in which Russia exited the war and in return gave up eastern Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic provinces. Lenin argued that this didn't matter because the socialist revolution was going to spread throughout Europe and make the treaty irrelevant.

War Communism

Authoritarian policies that Trotsky implemented to create/strengthen the Red Army during the Civil War. While fighting the civil war, Trotsky created a secret police force (Cheka), suppressed internal dissent, centralized control of the economy (confiscated property, controlled industry, and took food from peasants to feed the army). War Communism helped the Reds win the civil war, but cost them a lot of popular support. Historical Debate: Was War Communism the real communism OR was it just the policies that were required by any government fighting for its existence. Foreign lefties took the latter position and foreign righties took the first.

Women; USSR

Before Stalin came, the Communists had granted complete equality of rights for women, legalizing divorce and abortion, encouraging them to work outside the home, and even to liberate themselves sexually. After Stalin, abortion was outlawed, fines were imposed for repeated divorces, and homosexuality was declared a criminal activity. The regime now praised motherhood and urged that having large families was a patriotic duty.

"Peace, Land, Bread"

Bolshevik message during Kerensky's government. Lenin promised of an end to the war, the redistribution of land to the peasants, the transfer of factories and industries from capitalists to committees of workers, and the relegation of government power from the Provisional Government to the soviets. Three slogans summed up the Bolshevik program- "Peace, Land, Bread", "Worker Control of Production" and "All Power to the Soviets".

Nicholas II

During the war, Nicholas (who lacked military ability and training) insisted that he take personal charge of the armed forces. Problems like this and others such as the incompetent and inefficient bureaucracy that controlled the political and military system led to the collapse of the monarchy and Nicholas's abdication in March of 1917.

Social Democrats

In Russia, the Social Democrats separated into the mainstream Mensheviks and the radical Bolsheviks.

Alexander Kerensky

Leader of the ever-weakening Provisional Government. In September, when General Lavr Kornilov attempted to march on Petrograd and seize power, Kerensky released Bolsheviks from prison and turned to the Petrograd soviet for help. Kerenksky's actions strengthened the Petrograd soviet and showed Lenin how weak the Provisional Government really was.

Right Bolsheviks vs. Left Bolsheviks

Left Bolsheviks (led by Trotsky) wanted to end the NEP and launch Russia on the path of rapid industrialization, primarily at the expense of the peasantry. They wanted to carry the revolution on, believing that the survival of the Russian Revolution ultimately depended on the spread of communism abroad. The Right Bolsheviks rejected the cause of world revolution and wanted to instead focus on the construction of a socialist state in Russia. They believed that too rapid industrialization would worsen the living standards of the Soviet peasantry. This group also favored a continuation of Lenin's NEP

April Theses

Lenin's blueprint for revolutionary action based on his own version of Marxist theory. He maintained that the soviets of soldiers, workers, and peasants were ready-made instruments of power. The Bolsheviks must work to gain control of these groups and then use them to overthrow the Provisional Government.

NEP- New Economic Policy

Lenin's policy in the 1920s, abandoning the disastrous War Communism, and adopting capitalist policies. In this new system, forced requisitioning of food from the peasants was halted as peasants were now allowed to sell their produce openly. Retail stores and small industries (employing less than 20) could now operate under private ownership. However, heavy industry, banking, and mines remained in the hands of the government. After several years of the new system, it was apparent that NEP had saved Communist Russia from complete economic disaster. Bolsheviks were split (left/right) over how long the NEP would continue.

Mensheviks-

One wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party. The Marxist Social Democratic Party in 1904 divided into two factions: the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks wanted the Social Democrats to be a mass electoral socialist party based on a Western model. Like the Social Democrats of Germany, they were willing to cooperate temporarily in a parliamentary democracy while working toward the ultimate achievement of the socialist state.

Terror Famine

Stalin's artificially created famine imposed on the Ukraine, killing millions

5 Year Plan

Stalin's economic plan during the early 1930s in which Russia would transform from an agricultural country into an industrial state virtually overnight. The plan emphasized maximum production of capital goods and armaments. It was very successful, quadrupling the production of heavy machinery and doubling oil production. Collectivization was not as successful.

Collectivization

Stalin's plan to modernize Soviet agriculture. The Soviet government relocated peasants onto collective farms, repossessing the Kulaks' excess food (so they couldn't sell and make a profit from it) in order to eliminate the private farms. Stalin inaugurated his policy of collectivization of agriculture even before his 5 year plan. One of its major aims was to stimulate industrial growth through profits from the rural economy. Initially, Stalin planned to collectivize only the wealthier kulaks, but strong resistance from peasants led him to step up the program. By 1934 Russia's 26 million family farms were collectivized into 250,000 units. This was done at the cost of millions of lives that starved due to the resulting "artificially created famine".

Cheka

The Secret Police created during the Red Terror. : ( It will later become the NKVD, and ultimately the KGB.

The Great Purge

To achieve his goals of rapid industrialization, Stalin needed to strengthen his party bureaucracy. Those who resisted were sent to forced labor camps in Siberia. Stalin's desire for sole control of decision making led to purges of the Old Bolsheviks. Between 1936 and 1938 the most prominent Old Bolsheviks were put on trial and condemned to death. Also, Stalin purged army officers, diplomats, union officials, party members, intellectuals, and numerous ordinary citizens. 8 million Russians were arrested; millions were sent to Siberian forced labor camps, from which they never returned.

Sergei Kirov

a Bolshevik party member whose assassination was used by Stalin to justify the Great Purge (much like Marat's assassination for the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution).

Kulaks

a class of well-to-do peasant proprietors who employed wage labor (which appalled the Bolsheviks). 1 out of 13 peasant households was kulak. These were the "enemy" in Stalin's war against the peasants during collectivization

Soviet

a council of worker's and soldier's deputies (radical socialist councils that sprang up in St. Petersburg, army units, factory towns, and rural areas). These soviets opposed the Provisional Government and represented the more radical interests of the lower classes. The most numerous group of socialists that composed soviets were the Socialist Revolutionaries who wished to establish peasant socialism by seizing the great landed estates and creating a rural democracy.

Leon Trotsky

a former Menshevik who closely cooperated with Lenin. Together they organized a Military Revolutionary Committee within the Petrograd Soviet to plot the overthrow of the Provisional Government. After the successful October Revolution, he organized the Red Army during the Civil War.

Bolsheviks

a small faction of the Russian Social Democrats who came under the leadership of V. I. Lenin, who led the Bolsheviks to become a party dedicated to violent revolution. Lenin believed that only a violet revolution could destroy the capitalist system and that a "vanguard" of activists must form a small party of well-disciplined professional revolutionaries to accomplish the task. He also maintained that that the soviets of soldiers, workers, and peasants were ready-made instruments of power to execute his Marxist revolutionary plan. By the end of October the Bolsheviks had achieved a slight majority in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets (which had increased from 50,000 to 240,000 party members). The Bolsheviks took over the Winter Palace in the October/November revolution and retained power through the civil war. They became the new Communist regime.

The Provisional Government-

a temporary government established during the March revolution by the Duma that met on the 12th, it was the moderate Constitutional Democrats that were responsible for its establishment. They represented a middle-class and liberal aristocratic minority who pushed a 19th century liberal agenda: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and civil liberties. They wanted to carry on the war to preserve Russia's honor; this contradicted the demands of the peasants and workers who wanted it to end. This Provisional Government was opposed by soviets (councils of worker's and soldier's deputies) such as the soviet of Petrograd and others that were popping up all over Russia. In the fall of 1917 the Provisional Government promised that a constitutional convention would confiscate and redistribute royal and monastic lands, but the offer was meaningless since the soviets now had the real power, and the peasants had already started seizing lands. The Provisional Government will be ousted by the Bolsheviks (Petrograd Soviet) in October of 1917.

Civil War

although the Communist were in power, there were still many groups who opposed the new Communist (Bolshevik) regime: groups loyal to the tsar, bourgeois and aristocratic liberals, and anti-Leninist socialists (Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries). Also, thousands of Allied troops had been sent to Russia to get them back into the war. Between 1918-1921, the Red Army (Bolshevik Army) had to defend from many fronts. By the end of the civil war, the Communists had succeeded in retaining control of Russia; their regime had transformed Russia into a bureaucratically centralized state dominated by a single party.

Petrograd

another name for St. Petersburg, The Capital of Russia

St. Petersburg

capital of the Russian Empire (pre-1917, later it was moved to Moscow) and the site of the March Revolution and Women's Day parade for Bread and Peace in 1917. It was also home to the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet.

Reforms of the Bolsheviks

in the early reforms, the treaty Brest-Litovsk ended the war and required Russia to give up much of its eastern land, church and state were separated, there was a rule by the proletariat, the land was given to the peasants (who had already seized it but didn't exactly own it), factories were owned by the workers, large industry was controlled by the government, they switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, ethnic groups were given equal rights, and women were decreed equals of men, also gaining the rights of legalized divorce and permitted abortions.

Army Order No. 1

issued by the Petrograd soviet in March to all Russian military forces (while Kerensky's government was in charge). This order encouraged soldiers to remove their officers and replace them with committees composed of "the elected representatives of the lower ranks" of the army. Army Order No. 1 led to the collapse of all discipline and created military chaos. When the Provisional Government attempted to initiate a new military offensive in July, the army simply dissolved as masses of peasant soldiers turned their backs on their officers and returned home to join their families in seizing lands.

Joseph Stalin

joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and held the dull job of party general secretary, which turned out to be the most important in the party hierarchy. Using his post of party general secretary, Stalin made some 10,000 secretary appointments of trusted followers to key positions, and began to gain complete control of the Communist Party. By 1929 he succeeded in eliminating the Old Bolsheviks of the revolutionary era from the Politburo and established a very powerful dictatorship.

February (March) Revolution

on March 8, 1917 10,000 women marched through the streets of Petrograd (St. Petersburg) demanding "peace and bread" and "down with autocracy". They were joined by other workers and together called for a general strike shutting down all factories in the city on March 10. The Duma capitalized on this situation by meeting two days after the strike and establishing a Provisional Government that urged the tsar to abdicate. He did so on March 15.

October (November) Revolution

on November 6-7, Lenin and Trotsky led Bolshevik forces as they seized the Winter Palace of the Provisional Government. In this coup d'etat , Lenin turned over the sovereignty of the Provisional Government to this Congress of Soviets. Real power, however, transferred to a Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin. The Bolsheviks were now known as the Communists.

Nikolai Bukharin

one of the three leading men vying for power after the death of Lenin (Trotsky, Bukharin, Stalin), Bukharin was a right Bolsheviks, and favored the continuation of the NEP. He was executed during Stalin's show trials.

Red Army

represented the Bolshevik (Communist) forces during the Russian civil war, they were able to survive and defeat their White enemies because they had become a well-disciplined and formidable fighting force under the organization of Trotsky (commissar of war). White Army - they represented the anti-Communist forces. Their disunity seriously weakened their efforts; the distrust disrupted cooperation with each other. Although several different white armies were closing in on the Bolsheviks in late 1919, they were eventually pushed back

Romanov Dynasty

the dynasty of Nicholas II and family, ended by his abdication in March of 1917.

The Winter Palace

the seat of the Provisional Government that was seized by Bolshevik forces headed by Lenin and Trotsky on November 6-7. It fell quickly and with little bloodshed.

Politburo

the seven member ruling committee of the Communist Party By 1929 Stalin succeeded in eliminating the Old Bolsheviks of the revolutionary era from the Politburo.

The Ukraine

victim of Stalin's Terror Famine the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, Stalin forced a famine here, starving millions (this was known as the Terror Famine)

The Kornilov Affair

when General Kornilov attempted to march on Petrograd in July of 1917 and seize power, Kerensky (head of the Provisional Government) released Bolsheviks from prison and then turned to the Petrograd soviet for help. Kornilov's forces never reached Petrograd, but Kerenksy's action had strengthened the Petrograd Soviet and had shown Lenin how weak the Provisional Government really was.