Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

1. Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́бликThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Soviet State 1917 - 24

2. Methods : • Support all kinds of unrest and turn it against the Provisional Government • Give promises to important “temporary” allied • Deliver massive propaganda • Win control over the Soviets Lenin speaking at the Taurida Palace, in Petrograd, April 1917.

3. November (October) 1917 • Lenin decisive to take power before the November elections and before a threatening German occupation. • The Bolsheviks managed to organize an all Russian Congress of Soviets, and so the coup was carried out in the name of the Soviets. • Kerensky´s government did almost nothing to prevent the coup. Very few loyal forces were called to the capital. • The Bolshevik Red Guards (organized by Trotsky) could easily take control over key positions in the capital, they met no resistance.

4. The Bolshevik single party state

5. The new government, Sovnarkom, should be temporary, declared Lenin. Important was the view that the Soviets had the power. • The structures of the old regime should be destroyed (as the theory in State and the Revolution suggested) • All counter-revolutionary newspaper were forbidden • The new Bolshevik-dominated Central Executive Committee (head institution of the Soviets) was degraded to ratify decrees from Sovnarkom after they had been given. • The Congress of the peasants organizations was split up and replaced by Bolsheviks and Bolshevik-supporters • People in the bureaucracy boycotted the new regime in the beginning, which led to continuation of the chaos and the use of Bolshevik force.

6. November elections: Social Revolutionaries: 40,4%, Bolshevik Party: 24%, Cadet Party (liberals): 4,7% • Red guards present at the first meeting (5/1 1918), several soldiers were drunk. The Bolshevik deputies constantly disturbed the session. The assembly was dissolved the next morning and Pravda wrote: “The capitalists and landowners, the slaves of the American dollar, the murders and the right-wing Social revolutionaries demand all power for themselves – the enemies of the people…” (Quoted in Pipes: The Russian Revolusion) • People in general didn´t seem to bother about the Bolshevik action, no protests in the streets could be observed. • March 1918: Bolshevik Party – Communist Party

7. The Peace Treaty of Brest - Litovsk • The initial Russian tactic; to gain time and through propaganda influence the German soldiers to start a revolution failed. Germany increased her demands early 1918 and recognised the Ukraine as an independent state. Trotsky, who led the Russian delegation played a game of ”neither war,nor peace”. • Germany responded in February 1918, that they would start a new offensive. Trotsky supported Lenins urge for signing a peace as the German offensive started. • Finally the extreme harsh treaty of Brest – Litovsk was signed in March 1918, efter a non stoppable German offensive. Russia lost 26% of her population (Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Baltic States, parts of Caucasus), 28% of her industries and 75% of her coal and iron ore supplies.

8. The Civil War • The situation after Lenin´s decision to dissolve the Duma was increasingly tense. • Peasants started to seize land themselves, something that the Bolsheviks hadn´t really counted on. • An armed resistance soon developed, supported by Western forces. • Before the end of 1918 Russia was involved in a civil war. • In October 1918, Lenin gave the order of a formation of an army of 3 million men, The Red Army. • The Bolsheviks controlled the centre of Russia and had an organisation superior to the disorganised White forces. • The War Commissar, Lev Trotsky, proved to be both ruthless and extremely skilled as an organiser and in motivating his troops.

9. Why did the Bolsheviks win the civil war?

10. Red Terror • In a decree of December 1918, Lenin gave the order of an establishment of a secret police, the Cheka. • Targets were anybody who opposed the Regime. • Revolutionairy trials were set up around the country. • After the failed assassination attempt on Lenin, he ordered the use of Mass Terrer. • A decree of September 1919, gave the order of the establishment of concentration camps.

11. WarCommunism 1918 - 21 • Purpose: Establish a state-controlled economy that should lead to socialism. (Later it came to associated only with the drastic methods to win the Civil War) • Models: Germany´s war-economy; socialist authorities; the medieval Russian state. • Initially decrees about land-distribution; nationalisation of all houses in the cities; nationalisation of industries and banks; abolishment of the right of inheritance; all national debts declared non-guilty.

12. War-communism summarized: 1. Nationalisation of production and transports. 2. Abolishments of private trade, replaced by a state controlled distribution system. Ideologically motivated. People were divided in categories on ther rationing cards; industrial workers were the most valued category. 3. Abolishment of the monetary system and introduction of state controlled exchange system. The value of money should be reduced by a deliberatly created inflation. 4. Introduction of one single economic plan. 5. Introducion of obligatory work for all adult men, and partly for women and children.

13. The Results Pig-iron output Coal output Locomotives in (million poods)(million poods) service 1913 1,536 256 16,866 1917 1,510 185 17,012 1918 552 31 14,519 1919 310 7 4,577 1920 271 7 3,969 1921 329 7 7,683 Source: J.M Roberts. 1989 Inflation 1917 (November): 19,6 Billion Rubels in the monetary system 1921: 16 Trillion Rubels Source: Pipes 1995

14. NEP 1921 - 1928 ”I ask you comrades, to understand, that the New Economic Policy is just a temporary deviation, a tactical retreat, where the ground is being prepared for a new and decisive attack from the working class against the front of the international capitalists.” G. Zinoviev, December 1921

15. Background: A ruined economy; uprisings on the countryside; decreasing support for the regime among industrial workers; first signs of starvation. The regime survived with a combination of oppression and compromise; brutal violence against all opposition and economis reforms. • End of requesitions; • Re-introduction of money, new currency; • Peasants should pay a fixed tax; • Small scaled private trade and free markets allowed; • A large-scaled electrification programme was started; • No political changes

16. ”From the NEP Russia will come the Socialist Russia”