Download Revolution of 1917

Discussion Questions 2/17
1. Discuss the major causes of the Russian
Revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
2. What were the main differences between the
Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917?
3. Describe Lenin’s NEP of 1921.
4. How did the groups of revolutionaries either
succeed or fail during the Russian
Revolutions?
5. Compare and contrast the Russian Revolution
with the French Revolution.
Revolution of 1917
WWI
• Most didn’t know why they were fighting
• 1st year Russia looses 4 million men!
• At outbreak of war when private industry
tried to help
– Govt suspicious
• Tsarina German!
– Looked at Russians with contempt
– Rasputin
1915 Duma Suspended
• Would war kill liberalism and
constitutionalism in Russia???
• Rasputin killed
• Machine guns issued to police
• Duma was the moderates = become more
radical to save themselves
Petrograd
• Food scarce
• Govt too inept to deal with this
• March 8 1917 food riots begin
– Become political insurrection
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Troops sent into the city
REFUSE TO FIRE ON CROWDS!!!!!!
March 17 1917 Nicholas II steps down
Bro refuses thrown
Russia a republic!!!
Bolshevik Revolution Nov 1917
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Provisional Govt set up
Stayed in war
Promised land to peasants – didn’t deliver
Many soldiers just turned around and went
home
Order No. 1
• March 14, 1917
• Command of army to committees elected
by officers and soldiers
• Discipline collapsed
Lenin’s Return
• Had been exiled in Germany
• Germans send him back!!!!
– Why???
• Wants four things
– Immediate end of war
– Transfer of mine and factories from capitalists to
worker committees
– Redistribution of land to peasants
– Soviets as supreme power
– Peace land bread
Congress of Soviets
• Resolutions
– Peace
– Abolish landlord property
• March 1918
– Bolsheviks = Communist Party
Civil War 1918-1922
• Dec 1917 Cheka – secret police formed
(precursor to KGB)
• January 1918 Red Army formed
– Led by Trotsky
• Food becomes main concern
– Class war between peasants and city people
• Red Army vs White Army
– Red – communists
– White – anyone against them
Red Terror
• Thousands killed as hostages
• Thousands killed w/o trial
– Exterminating all opposed to new regime
– Class made a difference as to your loyalty
– All bourgeois gone (or changed status)
New Country
• United Soviet Socialist Republic
• USSR
Answer to Nationalism
• USSR in 1922 occupied 1/6 earth’s land area
• Hundred of languages
• 50 distinct nationalities recognized
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Cultural autonomy
Own language
Own schools
Own dress
Own folkways (cultural laws)
• Actually encouraged nationalism
Soviet Govt
• Authority in the hands of the central govt
• Central govt controlled by party
• One party allowed
– Communists
• Party controlled by Central Committee (about 70 people)
• Central Committee controlled by Politburo (about 12
people)
• Dominated over all – General Secretary (one man,
started by Stalin)
• Enforcement
– Secret police
– terror
NEP
• New Economic Policy 1921-1927
• State ownership of the basic productive
industries
– Food for machine made goods
• But ended up favoring kulaks
• Repaired worst damages of WWI and civil
wars
• But no real progress
Changes to Women’s Rights
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Women got equal voting rights
Right to divorce
Access to birth control & abortion
Receive more education
Stalin v Trotsky
• Lenin dies 1924
• Who will take over
– Trotsky – war commissar, v. famous
– Stalin – drawing all political strings to gain control
– Lenin warns against Stalin
• Stalin finds Trotsky guilty of treason
– Exiled to Siberia
– Banished from USSR
– Ended up in Mexico