Transcript The Russian Revolution and Building a Soviet Society

The Russian Revolution and
Building a Soviet Society
Pieces of Chapter 30
The Russian Revolution

Began in March 1917 in St. Petersburg protesting poor

conditions and demanding a new political regime.
Councils of workers, or soviets, took over the city.
Unable to suppress the disorder, the tsar abdicated.

liberals led the first stage



Alexander Kerensky wanted to establish parliamentary government.
Liberal regime lost support



Lack of a substantial middle class
unwillingness to enact land reform
devotion to continuation of World War
Liberalism to Communism

In November of 1917, a second revolution unseated
the liberal government and brought the Bolsheviks to
power under the leadership of Lenin.



Lenin centralized his power in the soviets.
The Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from World War I
The remaining Allies regarded the Bolshevik government as
dangerous


excluded them from the Versailles peace conference
carved new nations from formerly Russian lands.



The first election held
following the November
revolution returned a
parliament in which the
Social Revolutionary party,
not the Bolsheviks, held a
majority.
Lenin shut down the
parliament and replaced it
with a Congress of Soviets,
thus establishing a Bolshevik
monopoly on political action.
The Communist party
controlled Soviet politics
until 1989.



The revolution produced
foreign opposition and internal
unrest.
Britain, France, the United
States, and Japan all attempted
to intervene in Russia to
overthrow the Bolsheviks, but
they failed.
Internal efforts to oust the
Communists and reverse the
process of nationalization of
economic resources created a
civil war.
Stabililization of the New Regime



The creation of the Red Army under Leon Trotsky
restoration of some order in the economy through the New Economic Policy
reduced resistance to Communist rule.

Lenin’s Policies
 He believed the ends justified the means. He did institute changes that
took away private property. But he did not stick with war communism
which was inciting such rebellion.
 He instituted the NEP or New Economic Plan. The plan allowed for
some capitalistic aspects, such as allowing farmers to sell portions of
their grain for their own profit.
In 1923, a new constitution established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,
which remained under the domination of ethnic Russians.

Separate republics were subject to the national Communist party and the
government remained strongly centralized.

Universal suffrage elected the Supreme Soviet, but only Communist party
members were allowed to stand for office.

The parliament simply ratified decisions reached in the party's executive
committees.




Although a new constitution in the
1930s promised human rights, the
Communist regime represented a
return to absolute autocracy.
When Lenin died in 1924, a power
struggle ensued for control of the
Communist party and the
government.
Joseph Stalin emerged as Lenin's
successor.
Stalin was more devoted to national
development than the spread of
international communism. "socialism
in one country."

Rival political leaders were destroyed as
Stalin created a stranglehold on political
power.
Building Soviet Society
One key to the spirit of experimentation was the new
education system that improved literacy and reshaped
popular culture.
 In the 1920s, many Soviet citizens gained a voice in
new organizations encouraged by the Communist
Party.


New groups, workers, and women were able to have some
voice in the direction of the revolution.
Conceptions of family changed, but, by the 1930s,
efforts to protect the family structure were enacted.
Stalinism




As Joseph Stalin was able to gain control of the
Communist apparatus, the process of
experimentation came to an end.
Stalin wished to accelerate the process of
nationalization temporarily halted by the NEP.
Stalin wished to establish an industrialized society
under governmental control without private initiative
or capitalization.
Even agriculture was to be subjected to the goals of
industrialization.
Centralized Economic Policies





Stalin ordered the collectivization
of agriculture in 1928.
Large, state-run farms replaced
individual family units.
Collectivization permitted
government capitalization and
firmer control over the peasant
population.
When the wealthier peasants, or
kulaks, resisted, Stalin ordered
them killed or deported.
The Communists imposed
collectivization by force.
Government-run farms produced
little incentive on the part of the
peasantry, and production
suffered.






Collectivization did siphon capital and labor out of
agriculture into industrialization.
To foster industrialization, Stalin created a state
planning commission and a series of five-year plans.
Government capitalized infrastructure and
industrialization.
The focus was entirely on heavy industry, not consumer
production.
State planning did reduce dependence on markets, but
also created bottlenecks and waste.
Despite problems, Russian industrialization under the
five-year plans was rapid.
Toward an Industrial Society



Soviet industrialization shared some aspects with
Western developments. Urbanization rapidly
increased, factory management of labor was strict,
and welfare services developed over time.
Standards of living remained low, as industrialization
produced few consumer products.
The entire process was state-directed, and there was
no mechanism to air worker grievances.
Totalitarian Rule



Stalin created a totalitarian state
through the creation of a state
police apparatus and the party.
Potential rivals were ruthlessly
eliminated. Dissemination of
information was carefully controlled.
Stalin's regime was repressive.


His elimination of many military officials
weakened the Soviet Union's ability to
respond to external threats, particularly
the rising challenge of Nazi Germany.
His emphasis on internal development
left the Soviet Union without allies or
much of a foreign policy.