Russia - booklet 4

• The closing down of the Constituent Assembly - voters would be able to recall and replace 'awkward' representatives and it could only meet if over half the members were there/ the day of the first meeting the Bolsheviks opened fire/ 10 members killed/ it could only remain in session for 1 day/ right SR members left and formed the 'Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly'
• Making peace at Brest-Litovsk - Germany demanded huge parts of Russia - 26% of population and 74% of coal and iron ore/ left wing Bolsheviks wanted a rejection of terms and a 'revolutionary war'/ Trotsky wanted 'neither war nor peace' - refusing to sign a peace treaty and stop fighting the war/ Brest-Litovsk Treaty signed March 1918/ created a lot more criticism from Russian people - left SR's stormed out Sovnarkom in protest because Russia had lost territory where it was strongest/ middle and upper classes saw it as shameful - now wanted to overthrow Bolshevism and re-start the war/ led to civil war
• The formation of the Cheka - the Bolshevik secret police force who were used to suppress counter-revolutionary opponents/ they could arrest people when they saw fit and execute people on the spot without a trial/ they had a reputation of savagery and used torture to get information/ by 1921, the Cheka had employed nearly 150,000 people/ 95% of counter-revolutionaries in prison and concentration camps were starved workers, simple peasants and children aged 10-14
• Attacks on Bolshevik opponents - Decree on the Press - shut down hostile newspapers/ kadets outlawed and in November 1917 the rest were arrested and imprisoned/ 1918 - middle classes denied the right in elections to soviets/ mid 1918 - Mensheviks and SR's expelled - forcibly deported or chose exile/ thousands of lower level Mensheviks and SR's were arrested and sent to prison and labour camps in Siberia/ Russia became a one-party state from 1918 onwards
• The red terror - after attempted assassination of Lenin, Cheka were given more power/ targeted bourgeois 'wreckers' (anyone who opposed them)/ tortured people mercilessly - victims were scalped, crucified and pushed into vats of boiling water/ murdered Nicholas II and his family as he was a potential threat/ 1918 - estimated 10000 people killed/ 1917-23 - estimated 200000 people killed
• State capitalism (1917 - July 1918) - inflation was out of control/ unemployment rising and productivity falling/ industrial workers expected the Bolsheviks to deal with their grievances with a matter of urgency/ left-wing Bolsheviks were calling for an instant transition to a fully socialist economy/ activities of private companies monitored by the state/ 'Supreme Council of National Economy' set up to supervise industry and manage the economy/ 'Decree on Land' legitimised peasant land seizures of 1917/ 'The Decree on Workers Control' gave workers a say on factories were run and ensured that managers treated them properly/ nationalisation was implemented - banking industry taken over by the state and a number of individual factories were nationalised
• War communism reasons for policy (July 1918 - March 1921) - industrial output slumped/ shortages of food and fuel - peasants produced the bare minimum to feed themselves and their family/ famine - over half of the 10 million casualties of the civil war died of famine/ Pravda reported 1 in 5 people were starving/ 1920 and 1921 - produced less than half than in 1913/ peasants unwilling to sell their produce/ workers deserted the cities and returned to their native villages/ Petrograd lost ¾ of its population between 1918 and 1920/ Moscow lost half
• War communism main features - requisitioning - 'food brigades' sent to extract grain form peasants - essentially theft/ each group consisted of at least 75 men and 2 to 3 machine guns/ Lenin ordered in 1920 that 100 kulaks were to be hanged to terrify the population/ ban on private trade - did not succeed - black market soon developed/ strict rationing system - workers and army got the most whilst 'capitalists, landlords and parasites' received the least - barely enough the live on/ large-scale industrial enterprises put under direct state control in 1918 and smaller firms were nationalised later/ 'one-man management' - aimed to make industrial workers more disciplined and productive/ introduced a system of internal passports to try to stop people moving out of the cities
• Tambov rising - poison gas used on rebels and thousands of their wives and chilredn were used as hostages/ sparked a wave of protests across Russia/ railways were seriously disrupted and food crisis in towns/ Feb 1921 - Moscow virtually paralysed due to strike action/ Petrograd - Cheka opened fire on strikers and at least 30 killed
• Kronstadt mutiny - March 1921 - 10,000 soldiers mutinied and published 15-point manifesto (rights for trade unions and new soviet elections)/ lasted a fortnight and suppressed by 50,000 red guards (killed 10,000)
• The New Economic Policy - changes in economic policy which could help reach a mixed economy in Russia/ some business stated owned and some privately owned/ partial restoration of capitalism was meant to be temporary policy but was never resolved at the time of his death/ 'Tax in Kind' - peasants had to give a portion of their grain to the state and then could sell their surplus on the open market/ private ownership of small-scale businesses legalised/ 'commanding height' (coal, steel, railway network, banking) under state control/ private businesses expected to trade at a profit and would receive no help from the state if they were failing
• Economic results of the NEP - too late to prevent major famine/ a drought in the 'Black Earth' led to major crop failures/ no grain reserved to fall back on/ by 1924 - industrial output and grin production rose sharply but still lower than pre-war levels/ 25 million people affected by famine and 5 million died/ the scissor crisis - manufactured goods rose whilst agricultural goods declined/ division in Bolshevik party about the NEP
• Political results of the NEP - no let-up in 'iron rule' SR's and Mensheviks suppressed/ 1921 - 5000 Mensheviks arrested/ 1922 - 34 SR's put on trial on Moscow, accused of terrorist activity - 11 condemned to death/ orthodox church suppressed/ Bolsheviks claimed church refused to sell its treasures to aid famine victims/ soviets ordered to remove all precious items from church/ priests and congregations resisted - 8000 arrested
• The socialist revolutionaries, national minorities and the whites - SR's - establised the 'Komuch'/ Sept 1918 - Provisional All-Russian Government/ presence of 50,000 Czech legion/ were active in other armies (green)
• Trotsky and the red army - had many men at their disposal/ March 1918 - Trotsky appointed as 'People's Commissar for War'/ appointed many ex-tsarist generals (some volunteers/some conscripted) - 'dual command' - each general was supervised by a trusted Bolshevik- every order had to be signed by both/ end of 1918 - 1 million soldiers - 1921 - 5 million/ desertion big problem-mid 1919 - 250000 a month and disease worsened/ 1920 - 1/3 of men contracted typhus/ Trotsky - great speaker - inspiring moving from font to front in famous armoured train and had support of many generals
• The geography of civil war - Reds controlled many densely populated areas -1918-19 = 70 million people/ more people to conscript = numerical advantage in battle/ controlled main engineering factories - could manufacture more goods/ controlled almost all tsarist stockpiles (estimated 2.5 million rifles, 12,000 artillery pieces and 28 million shells)/ controlled railway network - could rush reinforcements into any battlefront/ Whites - only 20 million population/ relied heavily on handouts from foreign powers/ operated round the circumference of Bolshevik controlled areas/ communications very bad - almost impossible for commanders to co-ordinate plans and activities
• The defeat of Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenich - Kolchak - 150,000 men - spring 1919 - went on offensive and pushed Bolsheviks back 250 miles/ some 1919 - reds counter-attack and Kolchak driven back/ early 1920 - Kolchak caught whilst retreating along the Trans-Siberian railway and executed/ Denikin - 150,000 men/ 1919 - advanced to Orel -250 miles from Moscow/ rolled back by counter-attack/ March 1920 - retreat turned to panic and collapse and Denikin forced to resign and flee from exile/ Yudenich - 15,000 men/ 1919 - advanced within sight of Petrograd (no longer strategically important - Moscow made Bolshevik capital in March 1918)/ defeated by a much larger force commanded by Trotsky
• Britain - wanted to fight an ideological war against communism - Churchill said it was a contagious disease/ retain control of its supply dumps at Archangel and Murmansk/ most active/ 400 British soldiers died 1918-1920/ 3 awarded Victoria crosses/ supplies worth £100 million - some went into Bolshevik hands due to incompetence and corruption/ left-wingers started a 'Hands off Russia' campaign/ dockers refused to load a ship with weapons to be used by the whites/ small-scale mutinies/ two detachments of royal marines refused to go into battle when ordered to do so
• USA - felt it had a humanitarian obligation to ensure the Czech legion was safely evacuated from Russia/ focused on eastern Siberia - took an uneasy partnership with Japan/ more or less under orders to avoid involvement in combat/ war in Russia was 'very unpopular'/ June 1919 - members of an expeditionary force sent to Archangel and Murmansk were in state of near-mutinous resentment at being forced to meddle in Russia's internal affairs
• France - economic reasons - had economic interests in Ukraine region it wanted to protect/ withdrawn from southern Russia in early 1919/ unwillingness of troops to engage/ believed it was best contained by the creation of a strong Poland on its western borders
• All foreign intervention - wanted to establish a Russian government willing to: re-open an eastern front against Germany, deny Germany access to Russia's economic resources, prevent allied supply dumps falling into Germany's hands