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Post - October
- A week was spent fighting for power in Moscow
- Strike of Civil Servants against the Bolshevik party rulers
- Left SR's were taken into the Sovnarkom; only given low level positions (no Commissar's)
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Period: to
Phase 1 of Terror - from Below
- Post-rev anarchy of the masses
- Marxist principles to "eliminate the class enemy"
- 800 officers massacred in a 3 day rampage
- 50 military kadets promised amnesty were thrown into a blast furnace
- Largely susceptible to local grudge
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Decree on Press
- Bans all political opposition press; on the claim of restricting their malign bourgeois influences (this included SR's and Menshevik press)
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Period: to
Phase 2 of Terror - Political Enemies
- After the elections and rise of the SR's
- Extraordinary Assembly of Plant and Factory Workers triggers the violence against the Left SR's
- Mensheviks and SR's expelled from Soviets
- Political Opponents become the main target of CHEKA and concentration camps
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Sovnarkom rules by Decree
- Initially, the Sovnarkom (Upper parliament)would have to pass decrees through the Soviet Executive (Lower houses), which large size made it difficult to meet on a regular date.
- Sovnarkom would meet 1-2 times a day, and passed a decree allowing it to "pass urgent legislation without approval from the Soviet" - a clear breach of the Soviet Rule.
- Men/SR run Railway Mens Union threaten strike until Bol's take in Left SR's into the Sovnarkom
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Period: to
Reign of Terror
- Official Cheka reports state 8,500 were killed within the first year of terror, but most likely the Terror resulted in hundreds of thousands affected.
- Fitzpatrick quotes Cheka reports claiming they uncovered 142 counter-revolutionaries and faced 245 revolts in 1918 alone
- Official figures show 8,389 were shot and 87,000 arrested (1918)
- Smith claims the Cheka executed over 280,000 during the Civil War Era
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Period: to
Initial Decrees (116 in first 6 months)
- Decree on Land (8th Nov 1917) - the CONFISCATIONS ACT
- Decree on Unemployment (Nov), Work (Nov), Worker Control (Dec)
- Decree on Press (Nov)
- Decree on Titles (Nov)
- Decree on Private Ownership (Dec)
- Decree on Banking (Dec)
- Decree on Political Parties (Dec)
- Decree on Marriage (Dec)
- Decree on the Separation of Church and State (Jan 23rd 1918)
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Constituent Assembly Elections
Socialist Revolutionaries = 42% of vote - 370 deputies
Bolsheviks = 23.6% of vote (10 million) - 175 deputies. Received majority of the city vote - 33.6%
Kadets (4.9%) and Mensheviks (3.0%) also receive votes as conservative powers.- Bolsheviks attempt to interfere and declare results invalid/unfair
- Bolshevik deputies are sent to intimidate voters at the polls
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Union for the Defence of the Constituent Assembly
- Formed against the Bolshevik intimidation.
- (28th) The Union organises a mass demonstration to force Bolsheviks into the parliamentary opening.
- Demonstration (organised by the Kadet party) attacked by Bolsheviks as "counter-revolutionary"
- Bolsheviks arrest dozens of Kadet members, including many of the Constituent Assembly deputies.
- Later, SR's and Men's are arrested. "[this] was not so much a ban on a political party, as the declaration of civil war on a social class" - Figes
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Ceasefire declared with Germany
- Bolsheviks were forced to sign a peace treaty with Germany
- Lenin feared their peasant army would overthrow the Bolshevik party if they continued the war effort- Other Bolsheviks (inc Trotsky) preferred to fight a "revolutionary war"with German to establish the "Permanent Revolution"
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Lenin's C.A "thesis"
- Lenin publishes his thesis against the Constituent Assembly.
- Lenin argues the new roe of the C.A was endorse the changes made by the Sovnarkom, and not have any role in political enquires,
- Assembly should subordinate itself to the Sovnarkom.
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Formation of the Cheka
- Cheka formed with a team of 23 staff (by 1921 - 100,000 staff).
- Lenin states it was formed to "fight the counter-revolutionaries, and saboteurs"
- Immediately it operated outside the Law.
- 884 executions by June 1918
- 'Iron' Felix Dzerzhinsky was the Chairman.
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Czech Legionarres
- 1917 to 1918
- Czechoslovakian legionarres (prev POWs) join the SR's and Menshevik revolts in the Volga
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War Communism begins
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Constituent Assembly Opens
- First session, Bolsheviks walk out in protest at the Dismissal of a Decree.
- Assembly refused to recognise the Sovnarkom or its self-acclaimed total power.
- Union for the Defence holds mass demonstration against Bolsheviks, claiming "All power to the Constituent Assembly"
- approx. 50,000 armed Civil Servants
- Fired upon by Bolshevik troops, killing 10 and injuring many.
- Buried on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
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Constituent Assembly Dissolved
- When deputies went to meet for the second day, they were met with Bolshevik troops and locked doors.
- Deputies were presented by a Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
- No reaction from the public on the dismissal
"Lenin's dismissal... was a prime example of the fragility of the Bolsheviks..." - Malone -
Third Congress of Soviets
- Mass pressure from Bolsheviks (9 out of the 10 delegates present), congress passes all of the Sovnarkoms proposed measures.
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Germany Invades
- Germany invades Russia with 700,000 troops, unresisted by Russia, almost reaching Petrograd.
- After Trotsky refuses the proposed peace terms, Lenin accuses the resistors of "infantile disorder"
- Lenin forced to move the Russian capital to Moscow
- Germans take Ukraine (the "bread basket" of Russia)
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Treaty of Brest-Litosvk
- Loss of territory (32% of the best farming land, inc Ukraine)
- Loss of population (34% - approx. 62 million)
- 3 billion roubles in Reparations
- 89% of Iron Ore and Coal reserves
- 64% of industrial enterprise
- 26% of railways
- Lenin was thereby pictured as the man of superior judgment and the pragmatic savior of Russia
"to secure a truce at present means to conquer the whole world" - Lenin (on permanent revolution). -
Left SR's resign from Sovnarkom
- After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
- Leaves the Bolsheviks as the single party leaders of the state
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Komuch formed
- Formed by SR's and Mens in Samara
- Self proclaimed alt-gvt with volunteer armies including the Czech legionarres
- Formed volunteer armies for the first green phase of the Civil War
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Decree on Surplus Grain
- FIRST MOVEMENT OF WAR COMM - PIP
- Only 1/5 of 1918 grain levys were going into cities
- Jul-Aug '18: 200 peasant revolts in Tambov alone
- '17-'21: Land under cultivation falls 40%, Harvests only produce 37% of normal yeild - grain supply of 1919 was 1/3 of 1917's (which was already low).
- mid '19: 344 revolts
"organised robbery from the peasants" - Local commissar -
Decree on Nationalisation
- Targeted 3,300 large businesses
- Managers, Wage differentials and harsh discipline brought back
- Nov. Decree furthered their control of factories
- Pet's population down by 70% and Moscow's down by 50% in 1920
- Worker pop in 1921 half of 1917 (3mil to 1.4)
[in danger of becoming] "the vanguard of a non-existent class" -
Romanov Family executed
- Romanov family shot
- Figes argues that the execution of the Romanov's was a show of power, to show that the individual does not matter under the communist rule
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Period: to
Phase 3 of Terror - Widespread
- After attempt on Lenin
- Official announcement of Terror, enabled conc camps, executions and mass imprisonment
- Fitz: In 20 provinces (1918- June 1919); 8,389 people shot without trail, 87,000 arrested
- 5% of prison pop were under 17
- June 1918; CHEKA has 10,000 staff
- Hang the Kulak directive "hang without fail"
"The CHEKA is the defence of the revolution" - Dzerzhinsky -
Hang the Kulaks directive
- After series of peasant revolts in the Penza region "hang (hang without fail, so the public can see) at least 100 notorious kulaks, publish their names, and... execute the hostages"
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Lenin's Attempted Assassination
- Fanny Kaplan (an SR) attempts to assassinate Lenin; claiming he "betrayed the revolution"
- On the same day, Petrograd Cheka leader Uritsky is successfully assassinated.
- This leads to a massive escalation in Terror across all of the population.
- 'The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger' Decree gave the Cheka the right to "shoot on the spot... without any kind of trail".
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Ufa Directorate
- Other anti-Bolshevik forces join to form Ufa Directorate
- SR and Menshevik led, largely commanded over peasants
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Announcement of Red Terror
- Published in Izvestiya in an 'Appeal to the Working Class' the Bolsheviks called for the workers to "crush the hydra of counter-revolution with massive terror"
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Decree on Red Terror
- Enabled the creation of concentration camps, to imprison class enemies and execute "anyone involved in the White Guard, conspiracies and rebellions"
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The Whites
- Allies defeat Germany and attempt to assist White Armies, allowing the Bolsheviks to class the war as a patriotic/nationalist war
- Whites are scattered around the borders of central Russia (only 8-10mil people under White control); fight around southern russia, west siberia, northern russia and the baltic fronts
"The one factor that united the Whites was their hatred of the Bols" - Perfect -
Period: to
Phase 4 of Terror - Civil War
- CHEKA executed 140,000 and killed another 140,000 during suppression of uprisings (Smith)
- 50,000 White Guards and civilians executed with Lenin's approval in Crimea (1920)
- Deserting Red Guards were shot/had family taken hostage (1/2mil arrested in 1919, 800,000 in 1920)
- Crushing of Kronstadt Rebellion was final demonstration of CHEKA power
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The Greens
- 165 Peasant Armies
- 36 provinces out of control
- 60,000 Peasants armed
- Bol's lost control of Siberia for 6 months
- SR's become the largest benefactors/leaders of the Green Armies
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The Red Army
- 1918; 22,000 ex-tsarist officers forced to join the RG (8,000 had already volunteered)
- Size of RG doubled within 6 months (1919 to 160,000 soldiers)
- 3 mil soldiers in 1919 grows to 5 mil in 1920
- 2 mil peasants desert in 1919, 4 mil deserters in 1921
- 80% illness rate
- Trotsky's agit-train
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Effects of the Civil War
- 10 mil deaths, 9.5 of which were due to famine and disease. Only 350,000 deaths in combat
- 7mil orphans, 65,000 widows, 42% of prostitutes were 'former people' in Petrograd alone
- Petrograd pop falls by 70% and Moscow by 50% by 1920
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Cheka are "dissolved"
- Renamed GPU and OGPU, continuing its powers