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Russian Revolution
1917-1939
Causes for March 1917 Revolution
 Czars
had reformed too little
 Peasants extremely poor
 Revolutionaries hatched radical plans
 WWI Disaster
 Rasputin’s role in government weakened
respect for it
Czar Nicholas II
Russian Peasants
Rasputin
Ingredients there for a November
Revolution

Lenin adapted Marxist Ideas for Russia


Called for an elite group to rise up and create a dictatorship of
the proletariat
Conditions were at hand for Lenin and Bolsheviks to
make their move
 Provisional Govt. still in war, Problems with land reform
 Summer 1917 launched a terrible offensive against
Germany
 The army was in terrible shape and growing number of
troops mutinied
 Peasants seized land and drove off landlords
Karl Marx
Vladimir Lenin (2004 photo)
Bolsheviks?
Russian Civil War

How did Communists quickly defeat their
enemies?

Lenin quickly made peace with Germany
• Could focus all of energy on defeating enemies at home

War Communism
• Policy in which the communists took control of the banks,
mines, factories and railroads. Also took control of food made
by peasants and either drafted them into the military or
factory work.


Trotsky turned the Red Army into a great fighting
force
When allies intervened to support Whites, the
Communists used nationalism as a driving force to
fight off the foreigners
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Wrong Red Army
Trotsky
Timeline of Revolution

1914


WWI Begins
1917


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
March- Revolution forces Czar to Abdicate,
Provisional Govt. takes over
April- Lenin returns to Russia
July- Russia suffers more than 50,000 in casualties in
one battle
November- A second revolution takes place and
results in the Bolsheviks taking power
December- Bolsheviks seek peace with Germany
Lenin 1917
Bolshevik Revolution
Timeline of Revolution

1918




March- Russia signs the treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
ending the war, but losing a lot of territory
July- Civil war breaks out between the Reds and the
Whites, The Czar and his family are executed
August- American, British, Japanese among others
intervene in Russia
1921

March- Communist government is victorious and only
sporadic fighting continues
Brest-Litovsk
Czar and his Family
Communist State under Lenin

New Communist Constitution



Set up elected legislature called the Supreme Soviet
Gave all citizens over 18 the right to vote
Placed all political power, resources, and means of
production in the hands of the peasants and workers

The new government united much of the old
Russian empire to form the Soviet Union or
U.S.S.R. (The Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics)
 Lenin set up the NEP or New Economic Policy


Allowed some capitalist ventures (small business)
State controlled everything else
Soviet Union 1917-1938
Stalin’s Five Year Plans
Stalin took over after Lenin’s Death
He put into place his Five year plans, aimed at
making USSR into a industrial power
 Stalin brought all industry under govt. control
developing a command economy
 Stalin also brought all agriculture under
government control forcing all peasants to give
their land into a state run farm or collectives
(which were large farms run by peasants)
 Overall standard of living remained poor, wages
were low and consumer goods were scarce.


Propaganda Poster for Five Year
Plans
The Great Purge
 Stalin
always had great fear that rival party
leaders were plotting against him
 The Great Purge





Launched in 1934
At least 4 million people purged
Increased Stalin’s power
Most of military leadership purged
Weakened military (WWII right around the
corner)
A prisoner about to be executed
during the Great Purge
Soviet Foreign Policy

1917-1939 two very different goals pursued in
foreign policy

As communists Lenin and Stalin wanted to bring
about the worldwide revolution that Marx had
envisioned
• Lenin formed the Communist International of Comintern,
which helped revolutionary groups around the world


Their propaganda made other nations highly suspicious of the
Soviet Union
They wanted to win the support of other nations, so
they tried to join the League of Nations
World Wide Propaganda
Comintern
Life under Totalitarianism
 Stalin
ran the Soviet Union like a
Totalitarian state

Single party dictatorship attempts to control
every aspect of people’s lives
 Stalin



used:
Secret Police, Censorship, Purges, Terror
Replaced Religion with their own ideology
Used relentless propaganda
Novel about life in a Stalin prison
camp
Changes in Soviet Society
 Few
elite groups emerged as the ruling
class
 Granted free education, day care, health
care, inexpensive housing and public
recreation
 Women were granted equality under the
law
Equality in Soviet Union
Arts
 Stalin
forced artists to use Socialist
Realism

It focused on showing Socialism in a positive
light
 The
govt. controlled what books were
published, works displayed and music
listened to
 Writers, Musicians and Artists faced public
persecution
Censorship