The Russian Revolution,
Lenin
and Stalin
East Side Story: 1900-1940
Life in Russia from 1850
Already backwards, an Absolutist monarchy and
far behind the West in, well, everything, Russia
needed enlightened leadership, but instead was
stuck with the Romanov Dynasty.
The 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War
Seeking to expand its influence
in East Asia and colonize Korea
and North-East China before the
Japanese could, Russia went to
war. It was beaten soundly by
newly-industrialized Japan.
Unable to defeat a nonEuropean power, the Tsar lost
much credibility in the RussoJapanese War, and Russia could
no longer convince itself it was a
first-rate world power.
1905: Bloody Sunday
The Problem
Workers in St. Petersburg (the
capital at the time) began to
demonstrate against Tsar
Nicolas II. The loss to Japan
humiliated them, but their
main concerns were terrible
working conditions, low
wages, high inflation, and
continuation of the Tsar’s
Absolutist policies and
resistance to any type of
change.
The Solution
The Tsar reacted by opening
fire on the unarmed
demonstrators. He
subsequently made a few
halfhearted reforms, but
Russia remained pretty much
immune to modernization.
1917: Ready to Collapse
By 1917, Russia was on the verge of total
collapse:
• World War I was going poorly and soldiers were
deserting,
• The war had disrupted the economy, putting
Russia on the edge of mass starvation,
• Strikes and riots were increasingly common,
• Peasants were seizing nobles’ lands as law and
order broke down in the countryside,
• The Tsar had no clue how to fix anything, and was
acting as a general on the front lines leaving his
wife in charge. She, however, was advised by a
self-proclaimed psychic and mystic named
Rasputin.
1917: The February Revolution
By February 1917, the situation was
uncontrollable. Almost the entire
working class of St. Petersburg was
on strike, there was no bread in the
stores, and unlike in 1905 the
soldiers joined the protests.
Trying to save himself and his family,
the Tsar abdicated (stepped down as
leader) and fled to Siberia.
After the February Revolution, a
Provisional Government was
established but fared little better.
1917: Problems of the
Provisional Government
•
Non-Russian ethnic groups
declared independence
•
Few goods getting to stores
•
Runaway inflation
•
Violence used against
protestors
•
Refusal to leave World War I
•
Soldiers deserting army
•
Peasant revolts and seizure
of land increased
•
Communists demanding
further revolution
Although it only ruled for half a year, the war
and its effects on the economy continued to
destroy Russia, needing the support of the
landowners it refused to make any meaningful
reforms that would help the peasants, and to
prevent large-scale revolution it resorted to
violence even more frequently than the deposed
Tsar.
For most Russians, life only got worse after the
February Revolution.
The Communist Party
Russia had a strong and
growing Communist Party,
led by Vladimir Illych
Yulianov , known as Lenin. ->
Lenin has been expelled
from Russia by the Tsar, and
was living in Switzerland.
Most big cities’ workers’
councils called Soviets were
led by Communists.
Russia’s Communists were informally
divided into two groups…
Bolsheviks (Lenin’s group)
Mensheviks
The Bolsheviks wanted to
seize power immediately
through revolution, and
were not afraid to use
violence or other crimes to
attain power in the name
of the working class.
The Mensheviks believed
in a more gradual
approach. They wanted to
work with the provisional
government and
gain power
through
elections.
1917: Lenin’s Arrival
(See the actual train)
Right after the February revolution, the
German government helped Lenin sneak
back into St. Petersburg.
His rousing speeches made many
residents of the city turn to him and the
Bolsheviks as a solution to the ineffective
Provisional Government.
Russia (or at least St. Petersburg) had its
new leader.
1917: The October Revolution
Promising “Peace, Land, and Bread”,
and “All power to the Soviets” the
Bolsheviks used their control of the
Soviets to announce the overthrow of
the government with no protest from
organized workers. When they
announce their “Dictatorship of the
Proletariat”, no one (including the
army) supported the Provisional
Government enough to come to its
aid. That’s pretty anticlimactic for a
revolution.
Although it would not change its name
for a couple of years, the Communist
Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics) was born.
1918: The Peace
In March, 1918 Lenin makes good on the “Peace” part of
his slogan “Peace, Land and Bread!” by signing the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.
The treaty hands Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and
Ukraine to Germany. (All regions populated by nonRussians). Losing Ukraine was especially harsh, as it
contained Russia’s best farmland, coal mines and
factories.
But with Russia starving and chaos growing, Lenin had no
choice. However, these gains were stripped from the
Germans by the Treaty of Versailles a year later thus
explaining why so many Germans would buy into Hitler’s
concept of Lebensraum.
Germany thanks you for not pointing out the hypocrisy of
making Russia sign such a one-sided treaty of surrender
and then complaining when they themselves were
forced to sign the treaty of Versailles.
Not so Fast, Lenin…
By taking over St.
Petersburg, the
Bolsheviks (renamed
the Communists) had
gained was a dot on
the map of an
incredibly vast and
diverse country.
It would take nearly
four miserable years
of the Russian Civil
War (1918-1921) for
the Communists to
fully control the
country.
1918-1921: The Russian Civil War
The Red Army (Communists)
The White Army (Everyone Else)
• The Communists, with anyone
straying from Lenin’s
interpretation of Marx
considered an enemy
• Officers from World War I
• Many soldiers from WWI
(mostly re-drafted into
fighting)
• Some non-Russian
nationalities
• Supporters of the Tsar
• Foreign governments including an
ill-fated group of American
soldiers,
• Some non-Russian nationalities
• Anyone opposed to the
Communists
Results of the Russian Civil War
•
The Communists were more brutal and willing to kill
their own people than the Tsar
•
The Romanov Family was shot
•
The Communists began using secret police to find
“enemies”
•
1.2 million killed in fighting or “supporting the wrong
side
•
Communists killed 250,000 peasants who resisted
handing over their grain to the Red Army
•
The White Army slaughtered 100,000 Jews (30 years
before the Holocaust!)
•
5 million starved to death.
1918-1921: War Communism
This was Lenin’s economic plan during the Russian Civil
War
The idea of War Communism was to put everything into
the effort to win the war. Grain was seized from peasants
as needed (and often burned so the other army couldn’t
get it), factories were put under state ownership strikes
were made illegal, and many returning soldiers were
rushed into forced labor—all for the greater good.
For all except the true believers of Communism, these
were very unpopular policies.
1921-1928: New Economic Policy
(NEP)
Lenin’s “New Economic Policy” was
designed under the assumption that not
all commerce is exploitative. Small shops
were allowed to exist and turn a profit,
but the “commanding heights” of the
economy like banking, energy, and
transportation stayed firmly in state
hands. In the countryside, farmers who
fulfilled their quotas and produced more
than the government expected of them
were allowed to sell their surpluses on the
open market. Farm equipment produced
by the state was turned over to local party
officials who would allow peasants to
share it. This era of NEP is considered the
“golden age” of Soviet Communism.
Early Soviet Successes
Although there was no free speech, labor camps for
political opponents, crackdowns on the Russian
Orthodox Church, and the Communist ideals of no
formal government and worker control of factories
seemed like distant dreams, factories were building
tractors to give to villages, agriculture improved,
and education became widespread for the first time
in Russian history.
1924: Stalin Takes Over
Felled by a series of strokes beginning in late
1921, Lenin dies in 1924. Against Lenin’s dying
wishes, the ruthless Georgian-born “Man of
Steel” Josef Stalin slowly consolidated power,
and set about ending Russia’s “backwardness” in
one generation. (“Hard Line Speech”)