The 1917 Russian Revolution – 0405a

* WWI was a catalyst

- Russian government and army proved inept

- massive casualties and defeats, soldiers mutinying

- Czarina and Rasputin running the government scandalously

* February (March) Revolution of 1917

- in Petrograd bread riots get serious

- Duma (congress) declares itself to be the provisional government

- rival government of the Petrograd soviet also set up (shadow government)

-> Mensheviks (Kerensky) were a group of nicey-nice unfocused social revolutionaries

-> Bolsheviks (Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky) were a small group of disciplined communists

=> saw themselves as a vanguard party

- Kerensky (member of both Petrograd Soviet and the Duma) becomes indispensable

-> decides to stay in WWI

-> tries to bring about slow, legal, and fair social change

=> has nothing like enough time to do so

* Summer 1917

- Russian army threatens a coup

- Bolsheviks slow down the trains, encourage troop desertions

- Kerensky does nothing, looks weak

*October (November) 1917 Revolution

- Bolshevik coup unseats the Duma

-> Bolsheviks call for elections

=> Mensheviks win the elections

=> Bolsheviks invalidate them

+> they've crossed the line

-> Bolsheviks seize "complete" power in a chaotic nation

=> they promise: Land! Bread! Peace!

=> Mensheviks can only promise continued war and slow reform

- Bolsheviks unilaterally abandon WWI

-> the treaty is humiliating

* Reds & Whites (& Foreigners) - Civil War

- Czarists, SRs, Fascists, French, English, and US attack

- peasants and proletarians rally to the Bolsheviks

-> Bolsheviks get new respect as nationalists

- the victory is hard and leaves the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) paranoid

* "War Communism"

- Bolsheviks redistribute and collectivize land

-> peasant isolationism and inefficiency lead to starvation

- industry nationalized (government-run)

- internationalism (intentional spread of communism)

* 1921-1928 New Economic Policy

- less communism, more market

-> Lenin realizes mistake of rush to complete communism

- artistic and cultural explosion

- quick growth and general optimism

* Then, Stalin starts the really really bad nightmare