1. civil war and war communism, 1917-21 · 1. civil war and war communism, 1917-21 (while waiting...
TRANSCRIPT
1. Civil War and War
Communism, 1917-21
(while waiting for the
world revolution)
2. The Crisis of 1920-21:
Communist victory of one
state, no world revolution,
and the need to tone it
down.
3. The introduction of The
New Economic Policy,
1921-1928
4. The Death of Lenin
(1924), the rise of Stalin,
and the struggle for
power
From Revolution to Civil War, 1917-21
First Steps
26 October 1917:
The first Soviet of
People’s
Commissars is
formed
Stalin and Lenin 1917
7 December 1917:
Extraordinary Commission
for the Struggle Against
Counter-Revolution is
created (the Cheka) ЧК -
чрезвычайная комиссия
St. Petersburg, Moscow & the Mennonite story in Ukraine,
May 6-18, 2017
Possibility of
a October
2017 trip to
Russia with
me (Moscow
and St.
Petersburg);
deadline of
mid-February
519-885-2522or
1-800-565-0451
Death of a Monarch: 17 July 1918
It was all about
timing: By 25
July 1918 the
city had been
captured by
the White
Army
A new “icon” for a new age:
1919 in Petrograd
aka “our Lady of Petrograd)
(Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, 1920)
THE CRISIS OF 1920-1921“The State swelled up; the people grew lean”
(Kliuchevsky on Peter the Great, though no
less relevant by 1920)
How exactly, by 1921 (two ways)?
1. Soviet Power now extended from Poland to
Arctic Ocean to Black Sea and Transbaikal
to Pacific Ocean
2. State Administration expands under “War
Communism” as Lenin tries to nationalize
everything.
Urban:
Industry and Transport had been ruined: Industrial output
by 1920 was 20% of 1913 levels, as factories lack fuel to
even stay open
By August 1920, Moscow’s population 50% of what it had
been in 1914; and Petrograd was about 33%!
The approx. 8 million Bezprizorniki, rationing, and near-
chronic shortages
Is there an
(ideological)
problem with
these trends?
By 1920: mass starvation in
Western Siberia and
Ukraine..
February, 1921: More than
115 peasant uprisings
reported in country… and a
begrudging awareness by
Lenin and the Party:
“We know that in our
devastated country the peasant
economy has been destroyed,”
and that the peasant needs
goods, and not the paper
money which is being showed
on him in such profusion.”
6
Rural (Peasants)
Capstone of Societal Unrest:
The Kronstadt Rebellion, February 1921
15,000 sailors or so
and
a rich revolutionary tradition dating back to 1905
NEP as Economic Retreat…
and
Political consolidation after
1921- 1928
NEP, the 1920s: Peasants and small-scale capitalists win,
though political opposition is crushed.
Lenin responds:
FROM LENIN TO STALIN:
High Politics from 1917 to 1929
Lenin
Stalin
Trotsky Bukharin Zinoviev Kamenev
Krupskaia
Lenin:
A virtual unknown until 30 August 1918
Life for Lenin: 16 hour workdays…
\Kremlin and Smolny Institute
\An obsession with leadership
30.VIII.1918, Fanny Kaplan, and 3 shots
\Life in the balance, then recovery
and adulation.
From Bukharin: mighty Lenin, “with his pierced lungs
still spilling blood”, had immediately gone back to work.
From Zinoviev: “He is the chosen one of millions. Such
a leader is born once in 500
years in the life of mankind.”
Lenin now appears in a short
documentary film, to confirm
that he had not been killed.
Lenin posters now appear on
the streets for the first time:
http://media.hoover.org/images/
(this one c. 1920)
New poetry emerges:
“You came to us, to ease
our excruciating torment.
You came to us a leader, to
destroy the enemies of the
workers’ movement.
We will not forget your
suffering, That you, our
leader, endured for us.
You stood a martyr…”
The Decline of Health:
1921: complaint of
headaches and
exhaustion.
Lapses of memory
Slurring of speech
-Lead poisoning feared
from bullet
Then:
25 May 1922: First Major
Stroke: partial paralysis,
and temporary loss of
speech.
1922: Lenin is shifted to the
Gorkii estate for a hoped-for
recovery.
Concerns:
• Leadership in his absence
• Rivalry between Stalin and
Trotsky
May, 1922: Stalin appointed
first General Secretary of
party.
What we actually know about Stalin…
•Birth: 1878 or 1879 in Gori, Georgia,
as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
•Childhood, parents, and sources.
•Destined for seminary, but then….
•Expulsion as a Socialist, 1899
•First revolutionary name: Koba
•Most Georgian revolutionaries go…
Menshevik, but not young Koba, who
joins the Bolsheviks early on..
•From Koba to Stalin, and repeated arrests and internal
exile.
•Value to Lenin:
•Loyal, and internal (was he a police agent?!); and a
Georgian.
•1913: Marxism and the National Question.But it follows that
Russian Marxists
cannot dispense with
the right of nations to
self-determination.
Thus, the right of self-
determination is an
essential element in
the solution of the
national question.
Lenin and Stalin, and
growing distrust (?):
1.Relations with
Krupskaia
2. Role as “gate-keeper
to Gorkii
3. Nationality question,
especially purging of
Georgian (Menshevik)
leadership..
Is that the best context
for Lenin’s “last
testament”?
“Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General,
has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I
am not sure whether he will always be capable of using
that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky,
on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on
the question of the People's Commissariat of
Communications has already proved, is distinguished
not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps
the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has
displayed excessive self-assurance and shown
excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative
side of the work.
These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of
the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and
if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split
may come unexpectedly…..” (www source for this)
…”Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite
tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us
Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-
General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think
about a way of removing Stalin from that post and
appointing another man in his stead who in all other
respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one
advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more
loyal, more polite and more considerate to the
comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may
appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the
standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the
standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship
between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it
is a detail which can assume decisive importance.”
Death comes:
21 January 1924
Massive turnout for
funeral, and unexpected
devotion despite -35
degree cold.
One noted absence at
funeral…
https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=oStHN2xwWeE
A cult is born, and a body
preserved…
•Petrograd becomes Leningrad, and “Lenin corners”
•Institute of Leninism formed, as does Lenin
Museum.
• 1924 Stalin and “Foundations of Leninism”
The Struggle for Lenin’s Mantle, 1924-1928:
1.May 1924, The Central Committee of the CPSU hears
Lenin’s Last Testament… and decides to suppress it…
why?
2. Trotsky, is silent about Testament, and agrees to give
up posts as sign that he was not committed to power.
3. January 1925: Trotsky replaced as chief of Staff of
Red Army to lesser posts.
4. 1927: expelled from Party
5. 1928: exiled to Alma Ata
6. 1929: Exiled from USSR
…but was he still a threat???
Bottom Line, then, for Political Power after
1924:
1. 1924: Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin together.
2. 1925 Zinoviev and Kamenev seek reconciliation with
Trotsky… but too little too late, and now face their own
charges of disloyalty to the Party.
3. After 1925: alliance is with Bukharin and Stalin,
though mainly Stalin…
But was he strong enough to be a dictator.. And what
would that mean?