Modern History

  • Lenin set about creating a one-party state.

  • In July, the government feared a Bolshevik revolution and crushed their revolt.

    Many leading Bolsheviks, including Trotsky and Kamenev, were arrested. Lenin escaped to Finland.
  • The government or the Council of Peoples' Commissars (Sovnarkom) was set up.

    Lenin was the president and there were 15 ministers.
  • Lenin set about reorganising the Bolshevik party

    It grew from 26,000 members to 200,000 members
  • The treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed.

    The treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between Russia and Germany which ended Russia's involvement in WW1.
  • Lenin decided to make Moscow the capital of Russia. 

    The German front line was so close to Petrograd after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918.
  • Decree in nationalization.

    The state took ownership of all metal,textile,electrical and mining industries.
  • A class based system of rationing was introduced.

    Workers,soldiers and members of the communist party were entitled to food rations that people from other social classes weren't.
  • Lenin was shot down in Moscow.

    He survived the assassination attempt.
  • Decree of 21st November 1918 was declared,

    All private trade illegal and the food commissariat was put in charge of supplying consumer goods.
  • Bolshevik Party was renamed the Communist Party.

  • The people's bank was authorized to print as much money as they wanted.

  • 37,000 businesses had been brought under direct control of the communists

  • New Economic Policy

    The Soviet authorities permitted farmers to grow a surplus that could be privately sold.
  • Lenin was incredibly successful in defeating his enemies

    He was in a secure position politically
  • Signed the treaty of rapallo between Germany and Russia.

  • Lenin suffered his first stroke.

  • All of these socialist republics had come together as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). 

  • After a stroke he could not speak.

  • He died in the village of Gorky, near Moscow.