CONSOLIDATION OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: THE USSR

FOUNDER OF BOLSHEVISM: VLADIMIR LENIN

His Early Years--Exiled to Siberia

in 1897Committed to Class

Struggle and RevolutionMoved to London in 1902 and befriended

Leon TrotskyWhat is to be Done?

Tract

LENIN (CONT)

Key role of the Party in the revolution-- “Dictatorship of

the Proletariat”Bolsheviks split from the Russian Socialist

Party in 1912Character of the Bolshevik Party

--Joseph Stalin--Pravda

VACUUM OF LEADERSHIP IN RUSSIA

Petrograd Soviet dominated by Mensheviks

Failure of the Provisional Government

Workers refusing to work and soldiers refusing to fightPeasants were

expropriating the land outright

Power was literally lying in the streets of

Petrograd

LENIN STEPS INTO THIS VACUUM

Amnesty granted to all political prisoners in

March of 1917Lenin’s arrival in

PetrogradA tremendously

charismatic personality“Peace, Land, Bread”

“All Power to the Soviets”

Bolshevik party membership exploded

Consolidation of Bolshevik power

THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

The events of November 6

Council of People’s Commissars

All private property of wealthy was abolished and divided among the

peasantryLargest industrial

enterprises nationalized

XIII. NOVEMBER REVOLUTION (CONT)

Political Police organized: CHEKARevolutionary army

created with Trotsky in charge-- “Red Army”

Bolshevik Party renamed Communist

Party in March of 1918The Treaty of Brest-

Litovsk negotiated with the Germans

Terms of the Treaty

NOVEMBER REVOLUTION (CONT)

Humiliating Treaty would be nullified since all of the west was on the verge of revolution

Civil War fought between 1917-1920

-- “Reds” versus “Whites”

Complete breakdown of Russian economy and

society

CAPTIVITY AND MURDER OF THE ROMANOVS

Forced to stay captive in home at Tsarskoe Selo until August of 1917, when they were forced into exile in

Tobolsk.The following May they

were sent to Yekaterinburg to avoid advancing White Army supporters. They

were all shot in the basement of the Governor's House under the pretence of

a family photo. No one survived.

INTERPRETING THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The official Marxist Interpretation

--The importance of a permanent

international revolutionFunction of Russian History and Culture

Imposed Revolution on an unwilling victimA Social Revolution

Abolish private property, nationalize factories, legalize universal suffrage

Attempt to centralize agricultural production (seize grain to feed army and

workforce)Not successful: industrial production at

13% of pre-WWI levelsFamine strikes, peasants revolt, workers

strike, sailors mutinyNEP (New Economic Plan) attempts to

solve the problems in 1921 with its “compromise with capitalism)

REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGES

Peasants manage and sell their own cropsSmall amounts of private ownership are allowed

Other countries become less threatened by Bolshevism and recognize Russia (except USA, which doesn’t recognize the

USSR until 1933)

NEP (1921)

Communist Party becomes formalized (and all candidates must belong)

Cheka (secret police, precursor to KGB)New structures promote totalitarian state, brutally

suppress opposition.

NEW POLITICAL STRUCTURES

STRUGGLE FOR POWER POST-LENIN

Lenin dies in 1924 – who is his heir?

Most assume Trotsky (brilliant leader of the

Red Army)Stalin posed as Lenin’s heir, led movement to

deify LeninStalin brings new people

into the PartyStalin uses control over Central Committee to seize power in 1928

Head of both the Communist party and Soviet government from 1924 to 1953.

Most interested in power and not ideology.By 1928, established himself as absolute dictator.

Increasingly paranoid & dangerous.

JOSEPH STALIN

1. Cult of the Leader: the all-knowing and all-seeing Father of the People.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

2. Radical IdeologyMarxism-Leninism the driving

rationale for Stalin’s power grab. But Stalin altered the ideology to serve his

personal nationalist ambitions.

Stalinism refers to a brand of communism that is both extremely repressive and

nationalistic.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

3. OrganizationSoviet communist party effectively

solidified Stalin’s power. Party cells operated in every workplace & classroom, with party members reporting on anyone

who was not loyal enough.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

4. Mass mobilization of resources in the early years.

5. Secret Police – the KGBIf you say something against Stalin,

you’re in prison, or worse.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

6. central control of all organizations. News media: no independent press; only TASS

news service.

Heavily centralized “command economy” through Stalin’s Five Year Plan. Stalin’s 1st goal was to create an advanced industrial economy.

Peasants resisted; killings; exile. Severe agricultural losses & famine. After a decade,

millions dead.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

Art, film, literature was put in serviceto the ideology.Soviet art had topraise noble factory workers,the “new Sovietman & woman.”

7. Violence & Terror. Brutality on massive scale. Targets: political opponents

& party rivals.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

Creation of a gulag system. Gulags were slave labor camps for critics, former

capitalists, non-cooperative peasants & party rivals.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

Political purges from 1934 to 1936 were called the Great Terror.

Show trials, with coerced confessions and summary executions, from 1936 to 1938.During his rule, one million direct killings

& 12 million deaths in Soviet prisons & slave labor camps.

STALIN’S TOTALITARIAN ELEMENTS

STALIN’S PHOTO MANIPULATION

Thank you, Stalin. Thank you because I am joyful. Thank you because I am well. No matter how old I become, I shall never forget how we

received Stalin two days ago. centuries will pass, and the generations still to come will regard us as the happiest of mortals, as the

most fortunate of men, because we lived in the century of centuries, because we were

privileged to see Stalin, our inspired leader. Yes, and we regard ourselves as the happiest of mortals because we are the contemporaries of a man who never had an equal in world history.

CULT OF PERSONALITY