As the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War —22 and the creation of the Soviet Union in Marxist-Leninists espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of Marxism and Leninism, but generally support the idea of a vanguard party, one-party state, proletarian state-dominance over the economy, internationalism, opposition to bourgeois democracy, and opposition to capitalism. The October Revolution marked the beginning of the spread of communism in the 20th century.
It was far less sporadic than the revolution of February and came about as the result of deliberate planning and coordinated activity to that end. Critics on the right have long argued that the financial and logistical assistance of German intelligence via agent Alexander Parvus was a key component as well, though historians are divided since there is little evidence supporting that claim. The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of elected delegates; were Bolshevik and nearly a hundred were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who also supported the overthrow of the Alexander Kerensky Government.
The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries as well as the Mensheviks believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and walked out before the resolution was passed. Go where you belong from now on — into the dustbin of history! These would be followed by the arrests of Socialist Revolutionary Party and Menshevik leaders. All in all, the transfer of power was complex and replete with conflict within the revolutionaries.
The Decree on Land ratified the actions of the peasants who throughout Russia seized private land and redistributed it among themselves. The Bolsheviks viewed themselves as representing an alliance of workers and peasants and memorialized that understanding with the hammer and sickle on the flag and coat of arms of the Soviet Union. Other decrees:. The success of the October Revolution transformed the Russian state into a soviet republic.
A coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from to The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests respectively favoring monarchism, capitalism, and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants.
In addition, rival militant socialists and non-ideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into Armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until There were an estimated million casualties during the war, mostly civilians.
The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen. Many pro-independence movements emerged after the break-up of the Russian Empire and fought in the war.
Several parts of the former Russian Empire—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—were established as sovereign states, with their own civil wars and wars of independence. The rest of the former Russian Empire was consolidated into the Soviet Union shortly afterwards. Political commissars were appointed to each unit of the army to maintain morale and ensure loyalty. In June , when it became apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would be far too small, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army.
Opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units was overcome by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance, the same practices used by the White Army officers.
While resistance to the Red Guard began on the day after the Bolshevik uprising, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the political ban became a catalyst for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.
A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including landowners, republicans, conservatives, middle-class citizens, reactionaries, pro-monarchists, liberals, army generals, non-Bolshevik socialists who still had grievances, and democratic reformists voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule.
Their military forces, bolstered by forced conscriptions and terror and by foreign influence and led by Gen. Yudenich, Adm. Kolchak, and Gen. The Western Allies armed and supported opponents of the Bolsheviks. Hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans.
There were violent clashes with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks. The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated the total number of men killed in action in the Civil War and Polish-Soviet War at , , in the Red Army, , White armies and Poles and the total number of military personnel dead from disease on both sides as , The droughts of and , as well as the famine, worsened the disaster still further.
Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3 million dying of typhus alone in Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. By there were at least 7 million street children in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from the Great War and the civil war.
Wrangel—some through the Far East, others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. The Russian economy was devastated by the war, with factories and bridges destroyed, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded, and machines damaged. The industrial production value descended to one-seventh of the value of and agriculture to one-third. War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill.
The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. The government of the Soviet Union, formed in with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian republics, was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party Bolsheviks , who increasingly developed a totalitarian regime, especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin.
It was nominally a supranational union of national republics, but its government and economy were highly centralized in a state that was unitary in most respects. In , the communists Reds were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian republics. The original ideology of the state was primarily based on the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Stalin suppressed all political opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism—Leninism which he created , and initiated a centrally planned command economy.
As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Stalin also fomented political paranoia and conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents of his from the Communist Party through the mass arbitrary arrest of many people military leaders, Communist Party members, and ordinary citizens alike who were then sent to correctional labor camps gulags or sentenced to death.
The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December union. An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees, government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, which envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country.
The plan was developed in and covered a to year period. It included construction of a network of 30 regional power stations, including ten large hydroelectric power plants and numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.
The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by During the Civil War —21 , the Bolsheviks adopted war communism, which entailed the breakup of the landed estates and the forcible seizure of agricultural surpluses. Many city dwellers fled to the countryside, often to tend the land that the Bolshevik breakup of the landed estates had transferred to the peasants. Strong opposition soon developed.
The peasants wanted cash payments for their products and resented having to surrender their surplus grain to the government as a part of its civil war policies. The peasants were freed from wholesale levies of grain and allowed to sell their surplus produce in the open market. Commerce was stimulated by permitting private retail trading.
The state continued to be responsible for banking, transportation, heavy industry, and public utilities.
Although the left opposition among the Communists criticized the rich peasants, or kulaks, who benefited from the NEP, the program proved highly beneficial and the economy revived. Lenin and Stalin : Toward the end of his life, Lenin became increasingly anxious about Stalin and began criticizing him and urging his removal as general secretary. Stalin reacted furiously and the Orgburo was retained, but Bukharin, Trotsky, and Zinoviev were added to the body.
By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the s, established totalitarian rule.
The Central Committee decided not to publish the testament. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country.
Although he believed himself to be an absolute ruler as ordained by God, Nicholas II was eventually forced to concede to creating an elected legislature, called the Duma. Despite this concession, Nicholas II still stubbornly continued to resist government reform, included those suggested by the newly elected minister of the interior, Peter Stolypin.
In response, Nicholas II appointed himself commander-in-chief, so he could take direct control of the military from Grand Duke Nicholas, against the advice of his ministers. In his absence, the empress grew increasingly withdrawn and ever more dependent on Rasputin, who heavily influenced her political view on matters at home. Over the course of WWI, Russia endured major losses and was subject to extreme poverty and high inflation.
The Russian public blamed Nicholas II for his poor military decisions, and Empress Alexandra for her ill-advised role in government. Because Alexandra was originally from Germany, suspicion spread that she might have even deliberately sabotaged Russia, ensuring its defeat in the war.
Nicholas was still headquartered at Mogilev at the time. When he tried to get home to Petrograd, the Duma the elected legislature , which had by then turned on him, prevented him from boarding the train. After the Duma elected their own provisional committee built of progressive bloc members, and the soldiers sent to quash the St.
Petersburg riots mutinied, Nicholas II had no other choice but to step down from the monarchy. On March 15, , he abdicated the throne. He and his family were then taken to the Ural Mountains and placed under house arrest.
In the spring of , Russia was engaged in a civil war. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! The Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for more than three centuries, was at an end. After a brief return to Russian military headquarters in Mogliev to say a final farewell to the military, Nicholas joined his family at the Alexander Palace on March Nicholas and Alexandra expected their time at the Alexander Palace to be temporary, hoping to spend the rest of the war with their royal relatives in the United Kingdom then retire to one of their estates in the Crimea.
In Saint Petersburg, a wave of optimism greeted the abdication. The statesmen of the former regime were under lock in state buildings or in prison; the newspapers sang laudatory hymns to the revolution and freedom and reviled the past with an astounding fury. Crowds of idle, dissolute soldiers and sailors wandered continually about, while the well-dressed people who owned carriages and cars hid away in their homes.
Police were not to be seen. Things ran themselves, and very badly. The same day Nicholas was reunited with his family, the United States became the first foreign government to recognize the Provisional Government. The American ambassador to Russia, David R. Stenberg, Y. You can find books on the revolution and the Tsar , as well as a collection covering art in the early years of the Soviet Union. Eisenstein directed the silent film October, a dramatisation of the October revolution.
To find material on any of the subjects mentioned, search YorSearch , our Library catalogue. This story was originally posted on the Information Services blog.
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