SOVIET RUSSIA TIMELINE

SOVIET RUSSIA

April Thesis

The Purges

Civil War

New Economic Policy

A thesis given by Lenin after his return to Russia in 1917. Lenin spoke to the All Russian Congress of Soviets and preached his idea of returning the land of Russia to the peasants and ending the war for Russia. This speech was spoken towards the Bolshevik’s, to encourage them to take power away from the liberal and social democrats that made up the Provisional Government, and make up a new communist government. However, Lenin was not organized enough and fled to Finland after giving his speech. This thesis changed how the Bolsheviks thought about the provisional government and contributed towards the October Revolution, where the Bolsheviks finally managed to take power.

The Purges began 1932 and ended 1938, they were initiated by Joseph Stalin. Stalin was very paranoid and was fearful of losing control of his position. He decided he would purge the entirety of Russia of anyone he deemed suspicious of treason. He started with the Communist Party itself. In 1934,Sergei Kirov the leader of the communist party in Leningrad and close rival was assassinated, Stalin used this opportunity to begin his purges. One third of the Communist party members were executed, this included Lenin's and Trotsky's close associates, old bolsheviks and army officials. He wanted to be surrounded by yes-men. He also purged his military, 30,000 officers were dismissed or executed, he re-organized the Army by 1941 just in time for Germany to invade Russia. He then enveloped the rest of the population of Russia in his purges. People with a higher education were not safe, around 7 million were persecuted, imprisoned, exiled or executed. The secret police (NKVD) would go around arresting people at random, or people out of fear would tell on each other. Anyone who was found suspicious would have a Show Trial which was a fake trial where Politicians, Army Officers, and the Populace were charged with treason. The accused were beaten until the confessed to a crime they most likely did not do. Anyone “lucky” enough to not get executed on the spot was sent to the Gulags. These were work camps where you were worked to death. It was estimated that 50 million people perished between 1930-1950 in the Gulags. The Holodomos Genocide was a man made famine between 1932 and 1933. This happened in the Ukraine and the northern part of the Caucasus, these were the bread baskets of Russia and because food was sent directly to the cities the farmers had barely any to eat so 1.8- 12 million ethnic Ukrainians died. The total victims of the purges is 60 million or more people.

Started November 7, 1917, ended November 8, 1917.

The Russian civil war was a civil war between the red army (Bolsheviks) and white army (ant-bolshevik). There were other “green armies” such as the anarchist army but they were insignificant because there was no major fighting between these armies. After the provisional government was overthrown on the 7th of November, 1917 the Bolsheviks were in power. However violent opposition formed under Alexander Kerensky ( the former leader of the provisional government). The white army consisted of those loyal to the Tsar, the orthodox church, some Mensheviks, and landowners. Along with all these people fighting for power, the german army was advancing on Petrograd. On March, 3rd 1918, Vladimir Lenin ordered his team of negotiators to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, to stop the german advance. Leon Trotsky was appointed the commissar of war where he became an outstanding military commander. Under Trotsky and his officers, the red army pushed the white army and green armies out of Russia. An estimated total of dead soldiers is 800,000 and around 8 million people died due to famine and disease brought on by the war.

A policy put into action by Lenin in 1921 that allowed some private trade, ownership of some land and relaxing of war communism, ideas that seemed contradictory to communism. This policy was justified by stating that it was simply a “different type of capitalism”. It was a form of “state capitalism” that had to exist before socialism evolved that consisted of commercial, profit seeking activities occurring by the state with management of the productive forces all in a capitalist manner. This was put into place in order to help the economy, which was almost in ruins because of Russia’s involvement in World War One and the Russian Civil war. This policy led away from true communism in Russia and led to some disagreements in the government.

February/March 1917 Revolution

Five Year Plans

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

October/Bolshevik Revolution

Rapprochement

(between Germany and Russia)

February 23-27, 1917 (or March 8-12, 1917 in the Gregorian Old Style Calendar). This was the first revolution in Russia caused by long periods of frustration from the Russian people who lived under an oppressive and ineffective government. Russia was living under steadily worsening conditions of life, with the number of refugees and deserters from the army increasing. After peaceful protests and Petrograd becoming paralyzed by a general strike over food shortages, the government in Petrograd began to disintegrate. The Tsar, Nicholas II, tried to retain power by formally dissolving the State Duma (lower parliament) and attempting to return to the capital himself, but eventually agreed to abdicate his throne in 1917 to uphold domestic tranquility and effort in the war. This marked the fall of Russia’s monarchy and the collapse of Imperial Russia and led to a provisional government being set up before a more stable communist government officially came into power.

A treaty between Russia and Germany, signed in 1918, to make peace between the two counties and allow Russia to exit from World War One. Trotsky, Lenin’s right hand man, went to Germany to negotiate the terms and despite reporting to Lenin that the terms were too harsh, the treaty was signed anyways under the policy of “Peace at any Price!” The treaty stated that Russia had to give up all her western territories, which included the 62 million people living there and had to pay Germany 300 million gold Rubles ($14 B). The treaty was signed in order to safeguard “the socialist revolution” in Russia at all costs. This marked German Victory on the Eastern Front, the relocation of Russia’s capital from Petrograd to Moscow and Russian involvement in World War One ending.

October 25, 1917 (or November 7, 1917 in the Gregorian Old Style Calendar). The second revolution in Russia where the Bolsheviks, who recently obtained weapons from General Kornilov when he tried to oust the provisional government in August of 1917, decided to commence a full scale revolution. They arrested the members of the Provisional government while proclaiming a socialist revolution and took over key possessions of Russia (telephones, exchanges, government buildings, etc). During this revolution, Lenin, who led the Bolsheviks, delivers his battle cry saying “Peace, Bread and Land!”, the things the Bolsheviks were fighting for. The Bolsheviks met little resistance and controlled Moscow and Petrograd within a week. This revolution gave birth to the reconstruction of Russia, the creation of the U.S.S.R and communism officially becoming the government.

Started 1928

As suggested by the name five-year plans lasted five years. These plans were Stalin’s way of catching up to the industrial standards set by western powers. These plans often neglected the people in Russia which resulted in famine (as if the famines they had were not bad enough) and terrible quality products (the products were so bad people were better off not using them). These plans almost always failed to reach their goals. To enforce these plans Stalin set up a system of incentive and punishment. Those who slacked in production were punished and those who worked hard were rewarded. These plans advanced Russia’s industry aggressively. Russian prisoners worked on infrastructure and roads to expand industry as well.

1920

Germany and Russia began repairing their relations. The Treaty of Rapallo was one way of rapprochement. Germany under the Weimar government started to “talk” with Russia. As talks continued international relations grew and flourished. Germany traded with Russia and imported goods worth 433 billion German Reichsmarks in 1927. Germany depended on Russia to for raw materials. Germany helped modernize Russian industry, especially with Russian tank assembly. As relations grew Germany became less tolerant of communism, they even went as far as charging a communist party for treason in Germany in 1925.

1917

1939

1922

1918

League of Nations

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Nazi-Soviet Pact

New Government (Communist Party)

Provisional Government

Russia did not spend a lot of time in the League of Nations, and barely did anything during there time in it. They were admitted in to the League in 1934, they received great power status. Prior to them joining, the League planned and developed anti-soviet campaigns, the League were trying to intervene in Russian affairs. Three Nations were against Russia joining the League, which were the Netherlands, Portugal, an Switzerland. Russia took part in the many Conferences for Disarmament. Even though they did very little in the League they critique it a lot. The USSR Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Lituinov said “ the USSR could not support all the resolutions of the League of Nations.” They thought the charter was not perfect, articles 12 and 15 legalized war, 23rd did not provide racial equality for all people, however the Soviet Union understands the goal of Uniting Nations since Russia itself is a League of Nations housing 185 nationalities. The Soviet Unions time in the League ended in 1939 when they invaded Finland starting the Winter War. They were kicked out of the League.

Aug. 27, 1928

The Kellogg-Briand pact was initially set between France and America to outlaw war and avoid conflict, but the American Secretary of State Frank Kellogg purposed that the pact was to be opened to all countries so they could collectively outlaw war (except in the case of self-defense). This pact was ineffective and neglected. Even though this pact looked like a promising way to prevent war even with 62 signatories the pact was ineffective. There were no means to enforce this pact, as a result, signatories themselves neglected the pact. Japan invaded Manchuria and no one did anything about it. The only action was a commission sent in by Britain to assess the situation after Japan deeply rooted itself in Manchuria.

On August 23, 1939 secret talks opened up between Stalin and Hitler. They agreed upon a Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and Russia. It secretly carved up Poland for Russia and Germany to invade, it let Russia reclaim the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The key idea of this pact was that it gave both nations time. It allowed Hitler to invade western Europe without worrying about an attack from Russia. For Stalin, being paranoid as ever, was suspicious of Hitler and knew that the possibility of an attack was great. This pact allowed him to strengthen his forces and prepare for an invasion from germany.

Finally the New Communist Government was formed in October 1917 led by Lenin. The soviets established the new government under the Council of People's Commissars. It was led by Bolsheviks only, they had supreme power and were led by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Lenin’s first initiatives was to end the war and let the peasants seize the land. The peasants and the government had different ideas of what ownership was. The peasants wanted private plots but the government wanted to gather the land as a collective. Lenin opened peace negotiations with Germany even though his mostly everyone in the government apposed it. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk created peace, but at a large price. The major steps Lenin took to introduce communism to Russia were Factories became controlled by workers committees, all banks were nationalized and private accounts were confiscated, foreign trade became a state monopoly, opposition groups became illegal (this included the Mensheviks). A counter Revolutionary committee was established. All of the efforts did not stop people from trying, in January 1918 the members from the Provisional Government tried to bring back democracy, but the Red Army dispersed them.

The Provisional Government was a temporary government established March 1917 and created from the Dumas and moderate revolutionaries. They decided to continue fighting WWI which made many people very unhappy. The government promised a Constituents Assembly with universal secret ballots and legalized strikes however, the government had many weaknesses and these brought its downfall. They did not recognize the catastrophe conditions of Russia, for example famine was usually a seasonal event in Russia but now it became constant. The democratic leaders of the Provisional Government saw themselves as illegitimate because they were not elected so they argued a lot. A Constituent Assembly was necessary, but having German troops in Russia made that impossible. There was a power struggle between the Bolsheviks and Menshevicks because of these problems and Lenin and his Slogan “Peace, Bread, Land” addressed all of these problems. July 18, 1917, radical soldiers, mobs and the Bolsheviks attempted to overthrow the government, it failed. Lenin fled to Finland and led the Bolsheviks from there. Alexander Kerensky became the new Prime Minister of Russia. An August a conference was held to deal with problems Russia was facing but all it did was underline the rift between Marxist and Non-Marxist Solutions.

War Communism

Treaty of Rapallo

Kornilov Affair

An attempt by General Kornilov to overthrow the Provisional Government and restore the Monarchy in August 1917. Kornilov was the Commander-in-Chief of the armies so he had a lot of support from the troops. Kerensky enlisted the help of the Red Guards which were the Bolsheviks factory workers, he gave them weapons to fight off the coup. Kerensky defeated Kornilov and got the support of the entire army. Kornilov lost his position as Commander-in-chief and was sent to jail as well as 30 other officers.

June 1918

During the “anti-revolution” phase of the Russian revolution, the Russian government nationalized all major industries. Any factory with ten or more workers was nationalized. All the peasants had to give up their extra food collected during the harvest and give it to the government for rationing. On June 28th, 1918 the government outlawed private capitalism. War communism was based around some major principles: production is to be controlled by the state; private ownership is to be kept at a minimum, State controlled labor; the state controlled all citizen’s labor, extreme centralization was introduced; the production of products for the state to distribute was above all.There was a 4:3:2:1 ratio for food, manual workers in harmful trades, workers who performed hard physical labor, workers in light tasks/housewives and professional people (respectively). Money was to be abolished and replaced with a barter system. This system eventually failed and was replaced with the “New Economic Plan”.

A secret treaty signed in 1922 between Russia and Germany, stating that Germany was allowed to secretly rearm and that both countries would work under military cooperation. The Treaty of Versailles restricted development of weapons IN Germany and the Treaty of Rapallo allowed Germany to develop weapons on Russian soil, technically not going against the Treaty of Versailles.The treaty also led to the agreement between the two governments, on normalizing their diplomatic relations and to “co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries." This signified a new relationship between Germany and Russia.

Jagvir

Alexandria

Riley

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