The Emergence of Communist Dictatorship

• The Sovnarkom were the Council of the People's Commissars and they were the main Bolshevik governing body.
• The 35th army division petition said, 'among the soldiers there are no Bolsheviks, Mensheviks or Socialist Revolutionaries, only Democrats.'
• Opposition to the Sovnarkom forced Lenin into power sharing and not shutting down other political parties.
• Kamenev and Zinoviev were in favour of a socialist coalition Government and against the Sovnarkom.
• The Sovnarkom kept the support of the peasants by inviting left Socialist Revolutionaries to join the Sovnarkom and by passing 4 decrees.
• The 4 decrees that the Sovnarkom passed were called: The Decree on Peace, The Decree on Land, The Decree on Worker's Control, and The Decree on the rights of the people in Russia.
• The Decree on Peace was to pull Russia out of the war.
• The Decree on Land meant that land belonged to everyone including peasants and it could not be bought or sold.
• The Decree on Worker's Control meant that factory committees were given the right to supervise management and production.
• The Decree on the rights of the people in Russia gave rights to national minorities. This was only a paper measure because there was no Bolshevik control in the areas where it targeted.
• In October 1917, social insurance and benefits were to be introduced and a maximum 8 hour day for workers.
• In November 1917, there was the abolition of class distinction and the justice system. Women were also declared equal to men and were able to own property.
• In December 1917, the Cheka was set up. Banks and Church land was nationalised (under state control). Marriage and divorce was no longer linked to the church.
• Lenin's ideology was that people should run their own affairs so there was less need for bureaucracy and the idea of 'dictatorship of the proletariat' which meant that the bourgeoisie would be forced out of society.
• During the rise of the Sovnarkom, people were out of control and drunk.
• Lenin's solutions to the opposition to the Sovnarkom was that the Kadet party was denounced, outlawed and arrested. Political oppositions were put into prisons.
• The Cheka was set up on the 7th December.
• The Cheka was made up of dedicated Bolshevik supporters. They brought units of the Red Guard and military units under its control.
• The Bolshevik press labelled the bourgeoisie as the 'enemies of the people'.
• The Bolsheviks encouraged attacks on the bourgeoisie through the phrase 'loot the looters'.
• The Constituent Assembly posed a threat to the Sovnarkom because Lenin was forced to allow the elections. This meant that the Bolsheviks did not win.
• Lenin declared the Constituent Assembly as redundant and it was closed after January 5th 1918.
• The Decree on Peace, failed. The soldiers were failing and it meant that Russia was vulnerable for open German attack.
• Oligarchy refers to a small group of people having control of a country or organisation.
• The Cheka are also known as the All Russian- Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage.
• The Cheka was lead by Dzerzhinsky.
• the Cheka was responsible for destroying counter revolution and opponents of the Bolsheviks.
• The Cheka used violent physical and psychological methods of torture. They arrested, interrogated and execute on its own accord.
• The Cheka was virtually given the blank cheque by Lenin to do whatever they wanted.
• Lenin believed that the Cheka were necessary in times of revolution and the Bolsheviks needed the Cheka to consolidate their power.
• There were 100,000 agents in the Cheka. No one knew who they were but everyone knew they existed which installed fear and opression.
• The Cheka had killed approximately 200,000 political opponents.
• Victor Serge, an ex- Bolshevik, described the Cheka as one of the gravest errors that the Bolshevik leaders committed.
• Trotsky believed that Russia should drag out the peace long enough for allied forces to defeat Germany.
• Lenin wanted to end the war and win.
• The Treaty of Brest- Litovsk meant that Russia had to pay 6 billion marks in reparations.
• The Treaty of Brest- Litovsk meant that most of Russia's territories became independent or were lost.
• The Treaty of Brest- Litovsk was known as the 'shameful peace' because resources from Nicholas II's empire was lost.
• The Middle class lost the most in terms of land and money because of the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk.
• The Reds consisted of the Bolsheviks and the peasants who hated land lords more than they hated the Bolsheviks.