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Russia and Revolution. A ‘Short’ History of Russia. The Russian Tsars/Czars!. Ruled by Czars for hundreds of years – Examples? Czar = an absolutist monarch What did they not care about? Ie . Louis XIV and Versailles Brief westernization led by CZ A2
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A ‘Short’ History of Russia The Russian Tsars/Czars! • Ruled by Czars for hundreds of years – • Examples? • Czar = an absolutist monarch • What did they not care about? • Ie. Louis XIV and Versailles • Brief westernization led by CZ A2 • Lacking in resources/technology as compared to west • What revolutions had they “missed out” on?
Important Russian Czars P the G C the G
Life in Russia under the Rule of the Czar:An Autocratic System of Government Who had power? Who made up the majority of citizens?
The Winter Palace… Not too shabby, huh? Russian czars are disconnected from society and reality… Leads to revolt
1905 Movement • Lost to Japan in Russo-Japanese War - 1905 • Revolts breaks out • High prices, no fuel, and bread • Led by Father Gapon • Desire constitution, land reforms, & end to corruption • What is the purpose of a constitution? • Peaceful march on January 22, 1905 • …“Bloody Sunday”
Result? Czar calls for Reforms in his govt. ‘October Manifesto’ –freedom of person, conscience, speech, assembly and union The creation of a Duma No law would go into effect Without the approval of the Duma What do you think is going to happen?
What do YOU think happened? 1. Czar dismisses the Duma after ten weeks – WHY? 2. Cracks down on people who are anti-Czar 3. Discontent and revolutionary ideals spread in country, from peasants to educated elite
Fast Forward to 1917… Not much has changed since 1905… Russia still losing a war and suffering from multiple afflictions while royals live in the above accommodations
MAD MONK Unrest – Food shortages, poverty, backwardness of country Conflicting ideas of Nationalism– Failure of WWI Corrupt Govt. – Rasputin influence over Czar’s wife
March 1917 Revolution • Battlefield disasters = Russian mutinies. Led by CZ N2 • Food and Fuel shortages everywhere • Why does it always involve bread? • Workers revolt in major cities • Army supports them • CZ N2 abdicates • Provisional government created • Alexander Kerensky • Where is Lenin?
Communists protestors not content with the Provisional Government (Food – Fuel – War)
Lenin Speaking to Crowd I was just shipped in from Switzerland!
November Revolution - 1917 • The Bolsheviks (Lenin) create revolution throughout the country • The Bs seize power in cities • The workers control the factories and the mines • Why does this occur easily? • Lenin overthrows the provisional govt
I will give you peace, land, and bread! Thank you, that is all. “PEACE, LAND and BREAD” Why was this slogan so successful?
November Revolution Continued • Defending the Revolution • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk • End war/lose land & resources • Lenin wages Civil War (White vs Red) • Execute royal family • Eliminate all threats • Prison camps/Executions DISNEY MYTH
Europe during WWI What changes occur between 1914 and 1918? Why would Lenin have been willing to sign this Treaty?
How were the events that led to the Russian Revolution Similar to other revolutions we have studied?
Part II:A New Government for Russia Lenin, Stalin and Communism
Lenin’s Ideas for New Government: • Follow Marx: history of world = history of class struggle • Have vs. Have not • Changes • Need professional revolutionaries to create communism • Russia would advance as a agrarian, not industrial society
First Economic Policy… What was it and why does it fail?
Lenin’s Policies: • New Economic Policy (NEP) – March 1921 • MIXED ECONOMY • Small business re-open without state control • Heavy industry, mines, and banking still controlled by the government • Strong market and harvest end famine and hunger • The NEP saved SU from complete economic collapse
A poster of Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) ambitions. Russia prospered economically until it reached the same economic level as Britain, France, Japan and the US The NEP had many faults, despite its success in bringing economic relief in Russia. It aimed to address the social imbalances within Russia, but failed to do so.
What kind of an economy did Lenin create? Communism Capitalism
What was the name Lenin’s economic policy? Communism Capitalism
What role did each individual play in the Russian Revolutions? Who has the best facial hair? Figures of the Russian Revolution
The Rise of Stalin • Lenin dies in 1924 - Struggle for power among ‘Politburo’ • Trotsky V Stalin • Stalin drives all rivals from the ruling committee • Trotsky flees to Mexico – assassinated in 1940 • Consolidate power through fear/murder
Five Year Plans – CommandEconomy • Stalin begins an economic, social and political change to the USSR in 1928 • Sets economic goals for five-year periods • Purpose was to transform Russia from Agricultural to Heavy Industrial Economic Power • Oil, Steel, Heavy Machinery soared
"We must make good distance in ten years. Either we do it or we shall be crushed.“- Joseph Stalin What two areas of economic activity are these posters addressing?
Five Year Plan – Social Costs • No provisions made for workers • Living conditions were terrible – housing was almost non-existent • Strict laws limited where workers could live • Collectives – state controlled farms • Kulaks eliminated and sent to the Gulag • Propaganda stressed sacrifice to create new communist state • Over seven million died
“Starvation quickly ensued throughout the Ukraine, with the most vulnerable, children and the elderly, first feeling the effects of malnutrition. The once-smiling young faces of children vanished forever amid the constant pain of hunger and slowly starved to death. Mothers in the countryside sometimes tossed their emaciated children onto passing railroad cars traveling toward cities such as Kiev in the hope someone there would take pity. But in the cities, children and adults who had already flocked there from the Countryside were dropping dead in the streets, with their bodies carted away to be dumped in mass graves. Occasionally, people lying on the sidewalk who were thought to be dead, but were actually still alive, were also carted away and buried. While police and Communist Party officials remained quite well fed, desperate Ukrainians ate leaves off bushes and trees, killed dogs, cats, frogs, mice and birds then cooked them. Others, gone mad with hunger, resorted to cannibalism, with parents sometimes even eating their own children.”
“Meanwhile, nearby Soviet-controlled granaries were said to be bursting at the seams from huge stocks of 'reserve' grain, which had not yet been shipped out of the Ukraine. In some locations, grain and potatoes were piled in the open, protected by barbed wire and armed GPU guards who shot down anyone attempting to take the food. Farm animals, considered necessary for production, were allowed to be fed, while the people living among them had absolutely nothing to eat.” “By the spring of 1933, the height of the famine, an estimated 25,000 persons died every day. Entire villages were perishing. In Europe, America and Canada, persons of Ukrainian descent and Others responded to news reports of the famine by sending in food supplies. But Soviet authorities halted all food shipments at the border. It was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of a famine…Inside the Soviet Union, a person could be arrested For using the word 'famine' or 'hunger' or 'starvation' in a sentence.”
Kulaks Gulag 50 plus camps… 400 plus labor colonies…
“Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice ridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food . . . they collect orts [refuse] and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs” - Memorandum to NKVD Chief Yezhov 1938 “It was these Siberian camps, devoted either to gold-mining or timber harvesting, that inflicted the greatest toll in the Gulag system. Such camps “can only be described as extermination centres,”…The camp network that came to symbolize the horrors of the Gulag was centered on the Kolyma gold-fields, where “outside work for prisoners was compulsory until the temperature reached −50C and the death rate among miners in the goldfields was estimated at about 30 per cent ”
