Russian Revolution
What Changed After October?
our team;-rudra,Sahithi,Pavithra,Sheethal,saniya,Nandana
Introduction
What Changed?
- The Bolsheviks were totally opposed on private property as a result the government took over ownership and management.
- Land was declared a social property and peasants were allowed to seize land from the nobility and
they banned the use of old titles of aristocracy.
- To assert change,new uniforms were designed for
the army and officials.
- The uniform was chosen following a clothing competition held in 1918 where the Soviet hat {budeonovka} was chosen.
The Bolshevik party
- The bolsheviks became the only party to participate in the elections to the 'All Russian Congress of Soviets',which became the parliament of the country.
- Russia became a one party state.
- Trade unions were kept under party control.
- The secret police punished those who critisised the Bolsheviks.
- Many of the writers and artists during this time rallied to this party as it stood for socialism and change.
- After October of 1917, this had led to the experiments with arts and architecture. However many became dissapointed because of the censorship that the party had encouraged.
The october revolution and the russian countryside:Two views.
- The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian communist party.
- The Bolsheviks conducted the elections to
the constituent assembly however they failed to gain the majority support.
- Despite all the opposition from their political allies, the bolsheviks had then [March 1918] made peace with Germany.
‘News of the revolutionary uprising of October 25, 1917, reached the village the following day and was greeted with enthusiasm; to the peasants it meant free land and an end to the war. ...The day the news arrived, the landowner’s manor house was looted, his stock farms were “requisitioned*” and his vast orchard was cut down and sold to the peasants for wood; all his far buildings were torn down and left in ruins while the land was distributed among the peasants who were prepared to live the new Soviet life’.
The Bolshevik
Party
Requisitioned*an order laying claim to the use of property or materials. It can be refered to as 'take over'.
A member of a landowning family wrote to a relative about what happened at the estate:
‘The “coup” happened quite painlessly, quietly and peacefully…The first days were unbearable..Mikhail Mikhailovich [the estate owner] was calm…The girls also…I must say the chairman behaves correctly and even politely. We were left two cows and two horses. The servants tell them all the time not to bother us. “Let them live. We vouch for their safety and property. We want them treated as humanity as possible….”
…There are rumors that several villages are trying to evict the committees and return the estate to Mikhail Mikhailovich. I don’t know if this will happen, or if it’s good for us. But we rejoice that there is a conscience in our people…’
The Civil War
- When the Bolsheviks ordered land distribution, the Russian army began to break up.
- Non-Bolsheviks socialists, liberals and supporters of autocracy condemned the Bolshevik uprising. Their leaders moved to south Russia and organized troops to fight against the Bolsheviks.
- During 1918 and 1919, the ‘greens’ (Socialists Revolutionaries) and ‘whites’ (pro-Tsarists) controlled most of the Russian empire. They were backed by French, American, British and Japanese troops.
- Supporters of private property among ‘whites’ took harsh steps with peasants who had seized land. Such actions led to the loss of popular support for the non-Bolsheviks.
The civil war
By 1920,
- By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire. They succeeded due to cooperation with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim jadidists.
- In Khiva, in Central Asia, Bolshevik colonists brutally massacred local nationalities in the name of defending socialism. In this situation, many were confused about what the Bolshevik government represented.
BY 1922,
- Most non-Russian nationalities were given political autonomy* in Soviet Union (USSR) – the state the Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire in December 1922.
- But since this was combined with unpopular policies that the Bolsheviks forced the local government to follow – like the harsh discouragement of nomadism* – attempts to win over different nationalities were only partly successful.
Civil War POINTS by Pavithra
The making of a socialist society
Making a socialist society
In January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of former Russian empire. So, they took the following measures to establish a socialist society ;
- The Bolsheviks nationalised industries and banks
- Land was declared social property and peasants were allowed to seize the land of the nobility
- Officials assessed how the economy could work and made Five Year Plans on its basis
- Centralized planning led to economic growth. Industrial production increased and new factory cities came into being in Russia.
- An extended schooling system was developed. Arrangements were made for higher education for workers and peasants which helped them to enter universities
- Cheap public Health Care was provided
- Model living quarters were established for workers
- Creches were established in factories for the children of women workers
-With these new changes, Russian Society became a Socialist Society gradually
Box 4
Box 4
‘A commune was set up using two [confiscated] farms as a base. The commune consisted of thirteen families with a total of seventy persons ... The farm tools taken from the ... farms were turned over to the commune ...The members ate in a communal dining hall and income was divided in accordance with the principles of “cooperative communism”. The entire proceeds of the members’ labor, as well as all dwellings and facilities belonging to the commune were shared by the commune members.’
Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm (1955).
Socialist Cultivation in a village in Ukraine.
Stalinism and Collectivism
Stalinism and collectivisation
- By 1927-28 the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an acute problem of grain supplies.
- Stalin, who was the leader of the party at that time, investigated the causes of this problem and introduced some emergency measures accordingly.
- Stalin’s collectivization programme in 1929 was one of these measures. Under this programme the party forced all farmers to cultivation collective farms.
- The profit or the produce from a collective farm was shared by the farmers worked on it.
- However, those farmers who resisted collectivization were severely punished. Many were deported and exiled.
Peasant women being gathered to work in the large collective farms .
to continue..
- Many within the part criticised the confusion in industrial production under the Planned Economy and the consequences of collectivision.
- Accusations were made throughout the country,many ended up in Prisons or Labour camps.
- A large number were forced to make false confessions under torture and were then executed.
Continued..
- They did not want to work in collective farms for a variety of reasons.
- Stalin’s government allowed some independent cultivation, but treated such cultivators unsympathetically.
- In spite of Stalin’s collectivization programme, production did not increase immediately.
- In fact the bad harvests of 1930-33 led to one of the worst famines in the Soviet History.