consolidation of power (2 Viewers)

[littlebear1107]

Can somebody please give me a rough idea of what would be included in an essay about the bolshevik consolidation of power? When was it considered that they had in fact consolidated their power??

 

[mizz_smee]

i always thought they consolidated power after the civil war but i could be wrong
i spose as long as u justify it in ur essay u'd be fine

-the feburary revolution
-july days
-the november revolution
-constitute assembly
-civil war

thats all i can think of right now

 

[Tammie]

The nature of the Bolshevik Revolution 1917.
Feb Rev
Food and fuel scarce, bread riots and spiralling inflation.
1. 23rd Feb spontaneous break out of demonstrations. Complaining about bread, land, inflation, and the war. These AJP Taylor: " broke out more or less accidentally."
2. Over 200,000.
3. The garrison (Tsar troops) deserted Tsar, and on 2nd march he abdicated
Dual Power
1. The Soviets were re-established in Petrograd.
2. Therefore, there were two major powers 1. The Provisional Govt (set up after Tsar abdication) and 2. The Soviet
The Provisional Govt
1. Introduced reforms. Released political prisoners, freedom of speech and freedom of strike and unions. However, this did not answer immediate needs of food, fuel, and better working conditions.
2. Two biggest problems were over the war and the land and bread issues.
3. By mid-year 1917 soldiers were deserting in droves
Soviet
1. Had more power because it appealed to soldiers and workers.
2. 1st March issued ORDER NUMBER ONE. Declaration of primary loyalty to the Soviets. It stated: ‘The orders of the Provisional Govt are to be obeyed, with the exception of those instances in which they contradict the orders and decrees of the Soviet’
3. This took power from generals, supporters of Provisional Govt and placed it with supporters of the Soviet.
Bolsheviks and Lenin
1. Originally, the smallest party.
2. When Lenin returned from exile in April, he began to call for the soviets to seize power.
3. He began building up support and effective members.
4. Policy of April thesis he demanded an end to war and called for overthrow of P.G
5. Summed up in slogans ‘Peace! Bread! Land!’ and ‘All power to the Soviets!’
Kerensky
1. One of a few socialists in the Duma. Only person at time of Feb Rev to belong to both Provisional Govt and Soviet.
2. Kerensky's planned attack the JUNE OFFENSIVE was a major disaster.
July Days
1. July 3rd-6th confused and disorganised attempt to overthrow P.G
2. Started by uprise by sailors at Kronstadt naval base.
3. Army was used to suppress uprising. This was a setback for Lenin and Trotsky.
4. ‘Peace bread Land’ still appealing. Kerensky called for patience ‘you could be patient and silent for 10yrs...Why do you have no patience now?’
General Kornilov
1. didn’t like power of soviet
2. August tried to stage a coup of counter-revolution to overthrow the P.G
3. Coup evaporated before it reached Petrograd.
4. Showed weakness on power hold
The October Revolution
1. Seized control on night of the 24th-25th October.
2. Carefully organised. Took over important points. Telephone exchange, state bank, post office, Govt buildings, bridges and railways.
3. Nobody seriously resisted the takeover. Hardly any blood shed. In a sense, it was easy.
4. Firing of ship Aurora signalled the capture. Evening Oct 25th captured winter palace. Hardly any guards.
5. Provisional Govt members arrested





Civil War and the consolidation of Bolshevik power.
The civil war 1918ish-1921
1. Two major oppositions. Known as ‘whites’
Domestic opposition – Socialist revolutionaries and Mensheviks. Landowners, former army generals and factory owners.
External opposition – Counter-revolutionary forces. Allies who wanted Russia in the war and afraid of the spread of communism. Included US, British, French, Japanese, and Czech.
2. The triple offensive in March 1919 proved to be the red army’s turning point.
3. ‘The Bolsheviks had maintained themselves in power; and the non-communist world had perforce to acknowledge failure’ (Kochan and Abraham)
Red Army
1. Consisted of recruited people’s militias.
2. Trotsky brought back hard discipline and organisation. He re-installed the death penalty for desertion.
3. Conscription was re-introduced. 1918 –800,000 soldiers by 1920 about 3 million.
4. Speeches were made to maintain the morale of fighters.
Reasons for victory
1. Lenin’s leadership
2. Disunity of whites
3. Trotsky’s organisational skills
4. Withdrawal of allied support
Crisis of 1921
1. Russia was in a terrible state because of war. Estimated that disease battles and executions caused 10 million deaths.
2. Output of industry 1/5 of 1913 production
3. Inflation out of control
4. Food shortages caused population of Petrograd to fall from 2.5m in 1917 to 600,000 in 1920
5. Opposition from within the party. Declared as counter-revolutionary and expelled. 1/3 members were expelled between 1921-22.
6. Kronstadt mutiny.
A) Sailors, who early supported Bolsheviks munitioned, issued a list of demands.
B) Main being 1917 system of freely elected soviets, a democratic socialist system and the end to the Communist parties dictatorship. Rally cry was ‘Soviets without Communists’
C) Govt responded with extreme violence. Sailors refused to surrender. Massacre. 15,000 were killed or executed.
7. Famine.
A. From 1921-22 about 5m dies from disease of starvation
B. Cows horses and all livestock killed and eaten.
C. Corpses lay unburied, as people were too weak to bury them.
D. Cannibalism was well documented in this time.




Hope this helps its just a brief overview on the main sylabus point if u work of the basics you should get a pretty good essay... the easiest way would be to mention it in order of events and assess the importance of each one.... hope this helps.....

r u doing Trotsky or Kollantai

 

[littlebear1107]

thanks. I'm doing Kollontai

 

[Tammie]

damn ... i need help with trotsky our teacher spent so much time on russia and everything but not enough time on the personalities im stressing out so bad...well i hope i helped goodluck on tues

 

[bobbie212]

why would u talk about feb revolution and july days when the bolsheviks werent even in power yet. its about initial social political reforms like lenin's decrees, war communism, reasons for their sucess in civil war and nep

 

[mizz_smee]

i do trotsky but i just have one pre prepared essay
that i just keep writing
gets me good marks so just keep
just chuck in a few historians quotes
and i bullshit for the second bit
i can give it to u if u want
but u probs have all the info already

 

[mizz_smee]

you wouldn't talk about the feb revolution in detail
but it still caused the overthowing of the tsar
and is how the provisional gov came about

 

[bobbie212]

that has absolutely nothing to do with bolshevik consolidation of power

 

[Tammie]

Our teacher gave us a practice question on the consolidation of bolshevik power and told us to mention who the bolsheviks were eg. the party split... and mensheviks. Then go on to say after the communist party came to power this is how they consolidated their power to be the main faction and eventually rule to party. When talking about all this the points i added earlier will give a basic idea of the earlier events. And of course they will only be briefly mention 1 para at the most then deal with the consolidation. BUT it is still relevant to who the bolsheviks were and how they consolidated their power.

 

[but why....]

this is kinda weird but i have a similar essay question and the funny thing is my name (bearyn) means lil bear...

 

[Silver Persian]

I did that question 3 times (once in practise, once it trials, once in HSC exam) and when they say consolidation, they;re talkuing about after the October/November revolution. So you'd include the things like civil war, war comm/NEP, suppression of constituent assembly, use of secret police, abolition of the Cadets, I *think* there was censorship.

You can give a brief intro about the oct revolution, but its mostly how they consolidate their position of power, not how they got it.

 

[Bobness]

the modernisation one? haha that just needed a more conceptual knowledge of marxist ideology which while not one of the dot points was required background reading for most schools so the question wasn't that bad. definitely not easy either but i'd prefer that than a stalinism one haha

 

[Aprilpeters]

hey guys!
ummm im confused at how the NEP consolidated the bolsheviks power?

 

[lgaica]

a speech i did, got 19/20 hope it helps guys, good luck this year

My topic is Asses the means by which the Bolsheviks consolidated power by 1921. The word consolidate is defined as “to unite into one system or a whole”. In terms of the Bolsheviks consolidating power, this refers to the means in which they attempted to establish and maintain their one party dominant state.
The Bolsheviks did this through a number of means, politically and socially. They passed decrees, established the Sovnarkom, dissolved the Constituent Assembly, Used Terror through a number of means including the Cheka and The Red Army, and used censorship and propaganda to their advantage. All these factors ensured their one party dominance of the soviet state.

After the successful revolution and takeover in Moscow, the Bolsheviks set about creating a new government. Lenin knew that the only way the Bolsheviks could maintain power was through a one party dominant state. Lenin’s third decree set up the formal organization of the new government, the Sovnarkom also known as The Council of People’s Commissars, with Lenin at its head. The Sovnarkom was an incredibly powerful group consisting of fifteen Bolshevik leaders, each of whom was in control of specific governments, with Lenin as Chairman, Trotsky with foreign affairs and Stalin with nationalities. There were three executive bodies set up within the new government: The Politburo – the policy making arm of the government, the Orgburo – concerned with organizing, and the Secretariat – which appointed people to implement decisions in the communist party.

The historian David Christian argues: (refer to overhead)
““The new government had several sources of strength, which enabled it to survive the crucial six months of its infancy… The flimsy fabric of Bolshevik power rested entirely on the popular support of key sectors of the population… The government’s major concern was to consolidate that support. The decrees on land and peace earned it the sympathy of most peasants and soldiers, and the decrees on factory control consolidated urban working class support”
Lenin’s decrees had been used to the party’s advantage, in order to gain the popular support of the population. However, their popularity amongst the working class was by no means total, many of the working class supporting the Socialist Revolutionaries.
The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was an important method in maintaining the Bolsheviks one party dominance over the state. Pressure mounted to widen the government base to include representatives of all workers’ organizations in the promised Constituent Assembly elections.
Lenin believed that his government would only survive if it remained in the hands of a small band of dedicated revolutionaries; his Bolshevik government. He opposed the elections for the Constituent Assembly because he believed that the party would not poll well. He was pressured by his party, along with the resignation of some top-ranking members, persuading him to allow the elections in late November 1917.

As Lenin had predicted, the Bolsheviks had won barely a quarter of the seats, losing to the Socialist Revolutionaries. Lenin calculated that it would be impossible for his party to govern correctly alongside an assembly that was overwhelmingly non-Bolshevik. The Bolshevik’s response was simple and ruthless. In early January 1918, after only one day’s session, the Constituent Assembly was dissolved at gun-point by the Red Guards.

Richard Malone argues:
“Lenin’s dismissal of the Constituent Assembly was a prime example of the fragility of the Bolshevik’s hold on power. From Lenin’s perspective, Russia was still at war with Germany, there was growing opposition to the new government from allied countries, the majority of the nation supported non-Bolshevik parties, and he was struggling to unify the various factions even within the Bolshevik Party. Hence, Lenin’s dissolution of the Assembly left his political opponents without any legitimate power base from which to undermine a new government”
One of the most prominent ways in which the Bolsheviks consolidated their power was through “the terror”. The repression that characterized the imposing Bolshevik control over Russia became known as the terror. Some historians argue that it was the scale of problems confronting the Bolsheviks after the October revolution and the need to win a desperate civil was that explain, and perhaps justify, the extreme measures which the Bolshevik government adopted. Others argue that the repression was a necessary and unavoidable part of a political creed such as Marxism-Leninism. A further view is that there was something especially totalitarianism about Lenin and that he did not know how to act in any other way. Before 1917 Lenin had made it clear that a Marxist revolution could not survive if it were not prepared to crush its enemies. Lenin argued that:
“Coercion is necessary for the transition from capitalism to socialism. The form of coercion is determined by the degree of development of the given revolutionary class, and also by special circumstances, such as, the heritage of a long and reactionary war and the forms of resistance put up by the bourgeoisie. Hence there is absolutely no contradiction between soviet democracy and the existence of dictatorial powers”
The Bolsheviks used two key instruments to impose their policy of terror: the Cheka and the Red Army.

The Cheka was a better organized and more efficient form of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police. The name stood for “The Extraordinary Commission against Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation”. It was created in December 1917 under the direction of Felix Dzerzhinsky, who never allowed passion to deter him from the task. He was a ruthless leader and showed no remorse over his actions. He said:
“Our revolution is in danger. Do not concern yourselves with the forms of revolutionary justice. We have no need for justice now. Now we have need of a battle to the death! I propose, I demand the use of the revolutionaries sword which will put an end to all counter-revolutionaries”.
An order was issued by the Cheka in February 1918 to all soviets demanding the immediate arrest and execution of those who were agents of enemy spies, counter-revolutionary agitators, organizers of revolts against the government or those profiting from selling weapons to counter-revolutionaries. Lenin then introduced the death penalty. In July 1918, under Lenin’s orders, the ex-Tsar and his family were executed. In accordance with Dzerzhinsky’s instructions, all pretence of legality was abandoned. The basic rules relating to evidence and proof of guilt ceased to exist. Dzerzhinsky was convinced that the proletarian revolution could not be saved except by “exterminating the enemies of the working class”.

Another way in which the terror was performed was through the Red Army. The creation of the Red Army was the work of Leon Trotsky, renowned for his exceptional organizing abilities, who became commissar for war. Lenin showed his complete trust in Trotsky by giving him a wholly free hand in military matters. Trotsky supervised the formation and administration of a new fighting force in Russia. He had inherited the “workers’ and peasants’ Red Army” formed early in 1918. Within two years he had turned an uncompromising collection of tired Red Guard veterans and raw recruits into a formidable army of three million men. Trotsky enlisted large numbers of ex-Tsarist officers to train into efficient soldiers. As a precaution, Trotsky attached political commissars to the army whose function was to accompany the officers permanently. No military order carried final authority unless it was signed by a commissar.

Trotsky tolerated no opposition with the Red Army from officers or men. The death sentence was imposed for desertion or disloyalty. To conform with revolutionary principles, an attempt was initially made to remove traditional army distinction. However this was seen as too dangerous. The Red Army returned to the customary forms of rank and address.

In response to the Civil War’s increasing demand for manpower, Leon Trotsky enforced conscription in areas under Bolshevik control. Trotsky justified the severity of the Red Army’s methods by referring to the dangers that Russia faced on all sides. All individuals considered capable were conscripted including the peasants and workers. Desertions were commonplace despite of the heavy penalties. Throughout the war, the Reds gained recruits by offering defeated enemy troops and uncommitted civilians the stark choice of enlistment or execution. Trotsky’s strategy was simple and direct: to defend the Red Army’s internal lines of communication, to deny the Whites the opportunity to concentrate large forces in any one location, and to prevent them from maintaining regular supplies. The key to this was through Russia’s railway system. They were the means of transporting troops swiftly and in large numbers to the critical areas of defense or attack. Using the railway lines, the Reds were able to exhaust the Whites as an attacking force and then drive them back on the major fronts until they scattered or surrendered.
Michal Lynch argues:
“There was no doubting that Trotsky’s organization and leadership of the Red Army was a major factor in the survival of Bolshevik Russia”
The Bolsheviks had won the civil war over their opponents because of three crucial advantages: the social basis of their power was broader, they acted with greater unity and discipline, and their control over the geographical heartland of European Russia gave them a superior strategic position.
Another important means in which the Bolsheviks consolidated their power was through propaganda and censorship. Lenin certainly understood the role of propaganda and determined the newspaper to be one of the most important tools of a propaganda state. The establishment of Pravda (the Bolshevik newspaper) was one of the first tasks he undertook when he came into power. Pravda achieved the goals of Bolshevik propaganda by motivating the people and controlling the media available to them. Other socialist newspapers were censored. Lenin also curtailed the right to free speech, imposing the death penalty on all those who spoke out against the government.
In order to spread their propaganda, trains were sent throughout Russia with pamphlets and even films to assimilate the peasants. This allowed the communists to see things on a local level and take care of problems at the root. These trains were especially effective because they used films which fascinated the peasants. The films brought the faces of Lenin and Trotsky to them and made them feel closer to their leaders.
Reaching out to the military was a big deal to the Bolsheviks, and large amounts of money were fueled into military papers, where distribution was not a problem. Many soldiers would pass on reading material instead of throwing it away, and the spread of communist ideas was commonly done this way. Communist newspapers were also printed for enemy armies in hopes of undermining their movement Posters such as this one were used to encourage men to join the Red Army in the Civil War. This one reads “workers to arms! You are needed by the Red Army” and was made in 1920.


To ensure that the communists secured the vote, voting rules were changed in the early 1920’s. Now, votes were taken by a raising of hands. All candidates were selected by the communist party, making the voting meaningless since candidates were not truly chosen by the people. To make matters worse, voting counts were manipulated, making voter turnout appear higher.
To the Bolsheviks, propaganda and education were two inseparable entities. Education quickly became a state monopoly with the intention of promoting literacy and the soviet ideal. Lenin felt that a literate public would be more vulnerable to propaganda of the state. The literacy of the poor was previously felt to be impossible, and Lenin understood the difficulty in mobilizing an illiterate nation. . In the 1920’s, literacy schools were created and laborers were freed for a few hours each week to learn how to read. Lenin used these means to promote his ideology, and his image was often used in propaganda, although not to the glorifying extent that Stalin was.
To conclude, there were a number of means in which the Bolsheviks were able to consolidate their power. They attempted to gain social support through decrees and propaganda. They established a one party government and removed all political opposition through the establishment of the Sovnarkom and dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. They used terror to eradicate their opponents and through the Red Army they were able to win the Civil War. All these factors ensured the dominance of the Bolsheviks over Soviet Russia.

 

[lionking1191]

that has absolutely nothing to do with bolshevik consolidation of power

yes but a background to the nature and extent of the bolshevik's power needs to be provided with a brief outline of those events. only then you could talk about how and why they were able to consolidate power