Russia Russia finally began industrializing in the 1880s and 1890s. Russia imposed high tariffs, and the state attracted foreign investors and sold bonds to build factories, railroads, and mines. The Trans Siberian Railroad, connecting European Russia with the Pacific Ocean, was built between 1891 and 1916. The French were the largest foreign investors in Russia, and this served as the foundation for their military alliance. The man who planned Russia's industrial growth was Sergei Witte. 1
A small but significant industrial proletariat grew in Russia, and it suffered from the harsh conditions experienced in Western Europe 80 years before. Socialist parties could not organize legally in Russia, and there were no elections, so they were more revolutionary. Russia's Marxists organized the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1898. It was an underground party, and its leaders were in exile. It eventually divided into two factions. The Mensheviks wanted to copy the SPD and create a mass party which participated in elections and improved workers' standard of living. Following Marx, they assumed Russia had to finish its stage of bourgeois capitalist development before it could be ready for socialism. The Bolsheviks disagreed. Their leader, Vladimir Lenin, modified Marxism and created a blueprint for seizing power in country like Russia which had not yet fully industrialized. Leninism A party consisting of highly committed, disciplined, revolutionary intellectuals could make the revolution rather than the entire proletariat. This vanguard would be small, but it would represent the working class. The party should count on the peasantry playing a vital role in the revolution. The hammer and sickle stands for this alliance of workers and peasants. 2
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Lenin completely opposed ever participating in elections and he opposed the types of reforms promoted by unions (social security, minimum wage, overtime pay). Lenin explained why revolution had not yet happened in Western Europe. His answer was imperialism. Europe's bourgeoisie had allowed for a higher standard of living for their workers and had transferred the capitalist exploitation of the proletariat to their colonies in Asia and Africa. This had served to postpone the inevitable reckoning. Revolution of 1905 When Russia finally did experience revolutionary violence, exiled Marxists had little to do with it. The trigger was Russia's loss in its war with Japan. Demonstrators in Saint Petersburg were massacred in front of the tsar's palace on "Bloody Sunday." Strikes and demonstrations broke out across Russia as a result. Workers took over workplaces and neighborhoods and established governing councils (soviets). Tsar Nicholas II (r. 1894 1917) was forced to grant Russia a constitution and allow the election of a parliament (the Duma). The new constitution, the October Manifesto, limited voting rights, and ministers were still responsible to the tsar, who retained control over foreign and military affairs. The former serfs' 49 year debt was cancelled as part of the Stolypin reforms, which sought to make Russia's peasants a class of capitalist proprietors. 5
The dominant party in the Duma was the Constitutional Democrats (the Cadets), a party of bourgeois liberals (only a small minority of the population). They often sided with the tsar, as they feared the socialist alternative. The tsar's son and heir was a hemophiliac. His desperate mother fell under the influence of Rasputin, who she believed had healing powers. He was a self described mystic and prophet who enjoyed his access to the imperial family, and his influence over them greatly undermined the reputation of the monarchy. 6
Russia For Russia, the war was a bigger challenge than it was for the other great powers. It had fewer railroads, less advanced technology, less industrial capacity, and an unpopular and ineffective government. The Germans were usually successful against them. The Tsar was indecisive. The Tsar went to the front and left his wife in charge in Petrograd, which meant Rasputin was really in charge. This, along with the fact that the Tsarina was German, greatly eroded the population's trust in the government. Rasputin was murdered in 1916 by nobles who feared the damage he was doing to the reputation of the monarchy. By 1917, there was much discontent in the army and among civilians. Soldiers were expected to fight without weapons, and there were severe food shortages. Soldiers began to desert, and strikes began to break out. The Tsar sent the army to Petrograd to suppress the strikes and demonstrations, but the soldiers refused to obey his orders. Nicholas II had to abdicate in March 1917, and the monarchy collapsed. A democratic Provisional Government of Cadets and moderate socialists was established, under Alexander Kerensky. It decided to honor Russia's commitments to the Allies and kept Russia in the war. 7
Lenin spent the war in neutral Switzerland. He said the war had been caused by imperialist rivalries and he assumed that the war would be the final crisis of capitalism and that revolution would follow. He denounced the socialist parties which had supported the war in their countries' parliaments and urged soldiers to desert and make a revolution. He argued that their real enemies were the exploiting class, not their fellow workers. (Regardless, nationalism had proven more powerful than socialism in most of Europe). Germany helped Lenin return to Russia after the fall of the Tsar. Germany's intention was to foment revolutionary turmoil in Russia. Once Lenin arrived in Petrograd, he and the Bolsheviks began planning their revolution and denounced the Mensheviks for cooperating with the Provisional Government. Workers were organized into soviets controlled by the Bolsheviks and deserting soldiers were organized into a Red Guard. The Bolshevik slogan was "peace, land, and bread." Russia was in chaos and its government was weak, and the Bolsheviks were determined, disciplined, and organized, and thus were able to seize power in a coup in November 1917. 8
Russian Revolution The Bolsheviks transformed the Russian economy. Large estates were broken up and peasants were given land, all large businesses were nationalized, and all Russian debts were repudiated. A Red Terror was imposed and opponents, the Church hierarchy, and class enemies (including the Tsar and his entire family) were executed. Lenin withdrew Russia from the war and negotiated its surrender to Germany in the Treaty of Brest Litovsk (March 1918). Germany was allowed to occupy much of western Russia (modern Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states). Lenin assumed a revolution would soon break out in Germany and across Europe anyway, so it did not matter if he surrendered to the Kaiser's government at that moment. Once the workers' revolution triumphed, borders and national differences would no longer matter. 9
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Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The USSR or Soviet Union was established in the former Russian Empire in 1922. In principle this state had no particular ethnic or national identity. The state apparatus was actually under the authority of the Communist Party. The Russian Civil War (1918 1920) pitted the Reds against the Whites. Limited Allied intervention helped the Whites, but it was not decisive. The Whites were themselves divided among different generals and by ideology (from royal absolutism to democracy).the Red Army, led by Leon Trotsky, eventually won. Economically, war communism was implemented. Prices and wages were controlled, businesses were nationalized, and food was confiscated from peasants, which created unrest. After the Kronstadt naval mutiny in 1921 and the Red victory, Lenin relented and pursued a more moderate course, the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP allowed small businesses to operate, peasants to sell their crops freely, and prices to be set by supply and demand. 11
Lenin was incapacitated by a stroke in 1922, and died in 1924. Trotsky and Joseph Stalin became rivals for power in the Communist Party. Trotsky opposed the NEP and favored rapid industrialization, the collectivization, and the spread of revolution. Stalin, however, supported the NEP and believed in "socialism in one country." Stalin's positions at the time were opportunistic and shaped by his rivalry. Stalin controlled the party bureaucracy as its General Secretary and was able to remove Trotsky, who had fewer followers, from his party positions. Eventually Trotsky was deported, and he was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in Mexico in 1940. The Third International or Comintern was established in 1919. It was an association of the world's communist parties and under Moscow's orders. The world's Marxist parties had faced a dilemma after the Bolshevik Revolution. Many of them split between the radical revolutionaries who wanted to follow Moscow's example and orders, and those who believed in a peaceful, democratic path to socialism. The Comintern would aggressively oppose reformist, social democratic parties as well as begin a campaign (through propaganda and covert revolutionary organization) to spread communism around the world. This created enormous fear among many Europeans. 12
USSR under Stalin Stalin ended the NEP and embarked upon rapid, intensive industrialization through centralized state planning with no role for private individuals or local leaders. All decisions about production, distribution, prices, and wages, were made by central planners following a series of Five Year Plans. Industrialization focused on heavy industry (electrical generation, railroad lines, steel, dams) rather than consumer goods. There were as a result food shortages and housing and clothing were very inadequate. Millions of people were displaced and moved to industrial sites. With the collectivization of agriculture all privately owned farm land was confiscated by the state and replaced by gigantic collective farms. There was much resistance, and millions were deported and/or sent to slave labor camps. Famine killed millions more. Stalin created a network of slave labor camps across the Soviet Union. These gulags held millions of dissidents and discontented people. Entire ethnic groups were also deported. Beginning in 1934 Stalin began the Great Purge. Show trials of old Bolsheviks were held where, after torture, they all admitted to being imperialist spies and to disloyalty. The top party and military leadership was purged, and most were executed. 13
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