Transcript Mensheviks v. Bolsheviks

10th Euro Studies 2.26.15
Turn in:
 Nothing
Take out :
 Planner/Calendar
 Writing device
 Paper for notes
Today’s Learning Objectives:
 I can pick and rank 3 topics
from the Sophomore Project
assignment sheet.
Today’s Agenda:
 Reading quiz—open timeline
notes!
 Perhaps 26.5 again…
HW:
TRS #1—Research
Question due Friday @
start of class
COMMIES!
• “Arise ye pris’ners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the earth
For justice thunders condemnation
A better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall;
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We have been naught we shall be all.”
• --Internationale Communist anthem
Commies!
Movies & Advertising
Meanwhile, V.I. Lenin returned to
Russia from exile
• Head of the Bolshevik
faction—the radicals.
Committed communists
• Strength comes from
the Soviets, workers’
councils
The Bolsheviks’ slogan—why would
this appeal to the Russian People?
Bolshevik takeover-Nov. 1917
In response to “War Communism”
After the November Revolution
• Elections for a constituent assembly didn’t
give Bolsheviks a majority
• In January, Bolsheviks disrupted the assembly
with troops and dissolved opposition councils
• Abolished private property, nationalized
factories, redistributed land to the peasants.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Big one!)
• Russians agreed to an armistice –
cease fire in December 1917
• Russians agreed to a very harsh
peace treaty in March 1918.
• Gave Germany control over
millions of square miles of
territory from the old Russian
Empire
• TAKE A LOOK AT THE MAP—
What did the Germans gain with
this territory?
• Treaty was never really
implemented because Germany
was defeated in November 1918
Almost immediately, civil war
breaks out-start of the Cold War?
• Bolsheviks (Red Army) vs.
White Russians
• Whites: landlords and land
owners, some peasants,
supporters of the
aristocracy, liberals, nonRussian ethnic groups
• Britain, U.S., France, Japan,
among others, sent troops
to Russia to block Germans
and support White Russians
• Foreign intervention promoted a
sense of nationalism that aided the
Reds. Lenin used this as a
propaganda device.
• The intervention of the western
nations was based on a fear of
communism, wanting to stop German
advance, and practical ones (Lenin’s
refusal to pay the czar’s debts).
Russian Civil War 1918-1922
• Very brutal; millions die
• Hunger, disease, death,
and chaos
• Industrial production
declines 80% compared
to 1913. Farm
production barely 1/3 of
pre-war levels
• Bolsheviks cracked
down to survive.
Bolsheviks won; foreign
forces withdrew
THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
• The USSR faced serious eco. issues w/
the conclusion of the civil wars
• W. nations refused to trade w/ Russia
• It proved difficult to switch quickly to a
Marxist/communist system
• In 1921 Lenin responded with the NEP
• It was an attempt to rebuild agri. and
industry thru a free market system
• The NEP worked and Lenin seemed
ready to return to Marxist principles
• But his health deteriorated after a 1922
stroke, and he died in 1924
• This created a power vacuum and a
struggle between Trotsky and Stalin
Leon Trotsky
• intellectual, head of the Red
Army
• favored the doctrine of World
Revolution
– the USSR could not survive as
the sole communist state
– the USSR must therefore seek
to “export” revolution.
– as a doctrinaire communist he
opposed the NEP
Josef Stalin
• favored “Socialism in One Country”
– the USSR should strengthen itself and lead the
communist world by example
• as a pragmatist, he supported the NEP
• experienced as a bureaucrat, he became
the Party’s General Secretary in 1922:
here he appointed many apparatchiks
(these allies were crucial to Stalin’s rise)
– Apparatus of the communist party
– Professional politicians
• their power struggle lasted until 1928,
when Stalin was able to maneuver into a
position of power and defeat his enemies,
particularly Trotsky
– Trotsky was forced into exile and
eventually murdered with an ice pick
by Stalin’s agents in Mexico City in
1940
– Stalin’s rule saw the emergence of
totalitarianism in the USSR
• Stalin condemned all deviation from
“the party line”
• His style of leadership was that of an
“office dictator” who did not rely on his
personality but on his party officials