  Witness the collaspe of Russia's ancient autocracy and the rise of Communism. Get an inside close-up of Lenin from 1918-1924, including his funeral and entombment. (15 min) |
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| Teacher's Guide Objectives • Provides an introduction to the study of the Russian Revolution. • Stimulates discussion of an important events in the history of the 20th century. • Gives an eyewitness account of key events in the history of the modern Soviet Union . • Provides primary source material and encourages students to study this subject in greater depth. Introduction In 1894 Nicholas II became czar of Imperial Russia. Although neither he nor anyone else knew it at the time, Nicholas would be the last in the line of Romanoff czars who first came to the throne in 1618. For the most part there had been few changes in Russia’s autocratic system in three centuries. The czar held all the power. He ruled with complete and absolute authority. There was a brief reform movement under Alexander II in the mid-19th century but that came to a quick and tragic end in 1881 when a terrorist revolutionary assassinated the czar. To his son and successor, Alexander III, the assassination proved how dangerous any relaxation in autocratic rule could be. The reform movement faded away, but it didn’t die. When Nicholas became czar on the death of Alexander III, he vowed to follow his father’s policies. But Alexander had been a strong defiant leader and his son was not. Within a few years events overtook Nicholas and he had to agree to grant limited reforms. But he didn’t live up to his promises, and besides, they were really too little and too late. Reform turned to revolution. By 1917, Nicholas was forced to give up his throne—a year later, his life. The Seeds of Revolution A group devoted to the socialist theories of Karl Marx organized the first Russian Marxist Party in Geneva in 1883. Soon Marxist study circles were forming inside Russia as well. Among those who embraced Marxism was a young lawyer named Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov. The world came to know him as Nikolai Lenin. At twenty-five, Lenin traveled to Switzerland where he met leaders of the new Russian Marxist party. On his return home in 1895, he became an active revolutionary. Before long he was arrested and exiled to Siberia. During his exile, the Social Democratic Party, which Lenin would come to lead and rename, the Communist Party, was born. While the revolutionaries secretly organized, Nicholas tried to rule Russia. Right from the start his reign was story. After years of repression, many moderate liberals had hoped the new czar would take up the reform movement begun by Alexander II. But Nicholas refused. “I shall safeguard the principles of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as my father,” he said. Demonstrations against the czar were frequent and violent. It was a time great upheaval. Crop failures brought thousands of peasants into the cities looking for work. Russian industrialization led to the development of a new middle class who wanted some political say. Factory workers, caught between the new capitalists and the bureaucrats looked to the czar for some relief. Nicholas reacted as he thought his father would. He became more reactionary. The situation came to a tragic head in January 1905 when police fired on a crowd of workers who were marching to the Winter Palace to petition the czar for better working conditions. Thousands were injured and more than one hundred died. Added to this was an unsuccessful war against Japan that Nicholas had promoted. He hoped it would appeal to the Russian sense of patriotism and put an end to the turmoil at home. But news from the front was bad from the start and the war only added to the growing discontent. By 1905 the czar’s liberal critics became more vocal and the revolutionaries more violent. Workers in the capital formed a council or soviet under the leadership of Leon Trotsky a Marxist activist. The soviet wanted better conditions and higher pay for the workers. The czar retaliated with more arrests and more repression. Soon there general strikes all over Russia. Factory owners joined factory workers demanding change. Nicholas had no choice but to grant some political reforms. On October 17, 1905, the October Manifesto was announced. It granted civil rights and call for the institution of a parliament, the dumas, to which all classes could elect representatives. But Nicholas wouldn’t allow the dumas to develop into a real governing body and so there was little true change. Had he lived up to the promises of the October Manifesto and agreed to a constitutional monarchy like that in Great Britain, it is probable that later events would have been avoided. But Nicholas would not relinquish his autocratic. In the meantime, Lenin, now in exile in Europe, was consolidating his position within the small and fractured Marxist movement. In 1903, at a meeting of the Social Democrats in Brussels, Lenin managed to gain control of the Central Committee. He dubbed his band supporters Bolsheviks or majority, and those who disagreed with him Mensheviks or minority. By 1912 Lenin had control of the entire party and threw out anyone who wouldn’t accept his leadership. Then world events took over. In 1914 war broke out. Europe was divided into two armed camps: Russia, France and Britain against Germany and Austria-Hungary. But the Russians were completely unprepared for a large-scale war. There were shortages or arms and ammunition and no adequate transportation system to move the troops. Still the czar committed the country to all-out war. Predictably there were staggering defeats and monumental losses. In the first year nearly four million Russian soldiers were killed injured or captured. The situation was not much better on the homefront. There were massive shortages of food and supplies. Strikes and food riots erupted everywhere. Except for those on the extreme right, all support for Nicholas and his regime was fast disappearing. Despite all this, the czar decided to take control of the Army himself and plans were made for a new offensive in the spring of 1917. The Revolution By the beginning of 1917, the situation in Russia was out of control. The president of the dumas wrote to Nicholas: “There is anarchy in the capital. The government is paralyzed.” The czar did not answer. Every day the strikes and riots grew worse. Then came the final blow—mutiny. Guards and troops in Petrograd joined the rioters. The old order was crumbling. A committee of moderates in the dumas tried to maintain order but they were rivaled by the more radical soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Conditions were so bad; there was a real fear that the revolutionaries would take control of the capital. Still unable to grasp the severity of the situation, Nicholas planned to return to Petrograd in February. By then everyone—even the military—agreed that the czar had to step down. In March, Nicholas II abdicated his throne. The Romanoff Dynasty—rulers of Russia for three hundred years—was over. Now a new government had to be set up to establish some order. Power was divided between the dumas and the soviet. The Bolsheviks, who were a minority within the soviet, opposed any cooperation with the dumas formed provisional government, which the soviet agreed to support. The government’s most pressing problem was what to do about the war in Europe. All factions, except for the Bolsheviks, agreed that Russia was morally and politically obligated to continue fighting. They also believed that if Germany won, the czar would be restored to the throne. In April, Lenin returned to Petrograd and immediately began a campaign to seize power. His call for an end to the war gained him much support among the working people on whom the war fell hardest. But the provisional government managed to hang on and Lenin fled the country. He returned in May to increasing support. The war was going badly for the Russians. Defeat followed defeat. By July there were riots in Petrograd. Workers and armed soldiers took to the streets. The government blamed the Bolsheviks. Once again Lenin was forced into exile. A new coalition government was formed under Alexander Kerensky, a radical member of the dumas and a prominent member of the soviet. Kerensky’s coalition was sabotaged on all sides. While right wing elements attempted a coup against him, the radical Bolsheviks managed to take control of the Soviets in Petrograd and Moscow. Kerensky was rapidly losing support. Lenin saw his opportunity. He openly called for an armed revolution. A military committee under Leon Trotsky’s leadership was set up by the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky had under his control an armed militia of some twenty-five thousand—the Red Guard. Kerensky tried to counteract, but couldn’t. On November 7th, in an almost bloodless coup, the Bolsheviks took control of the capital. The following day, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets meeting in Petrograd proclaimed the Bolshevik Revolution. A government was formed around a council of the People’s Commissars. Lenin was the Council’s head. With success in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks quickly seized control of the soviets in other parts of Russia. Now Lenin set about to consolidate his power. He arranged for a separate peace treaty with Germany, moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow and kept an eye on the outer provinces where counter-revolutionary forces were gathering. The Civil War By May of 1918 there was a civil war in Russia with the Bolshevik Red Army against the anti-Communist White Army. Lenin responded to the civil war by clamping down on all opposition. When the Bolsheviks only won 25% of the seats in elections to the Constituent Assembly, Lenin disbanded it. Then he created the Cheka—the secret police—who unleashed a reign of “Red Terror” across the country. Prisoners and hostages were murdered at will or sent into exile. Among the thousands of victims were the czar and his family who had been kept prisoners since the abdication. Because of the civil war, Lenin instituted a system called “War Communism.” This was an attempt to change Russia’s society and economy into a classless communist ideal in one all-out move. Industry was nationalized on a massive scale instead of gradually as Lenin had always proposed. On the farms, grain was taken from those who had any surplus beyond their immediate needs and given away. Money was replaced with barter. Gradually the Russian economy failed. Famine and disease plagued the countryside and cities. Russian industry was almost at a standstill. The effects were devastating. It is estimated that between World War I, the civil war and the famine that followed, nearly nineteen million Russians died. Recognizing that War Communism was a failure, Lenin instituted a new economic policy in 1921. By then, the Revolution he had forged was secure. The White Army had been defeated and the opposition, which remained, was handled by the secret police. One-party rule by the Communists became an essential principle of Russian Marxism. In January 1924 Lenin died. A ruthless dictator whose own reign of terror would last for thirty years soon replaced him. What Lenin had wanted for Russia was an ideal classless society that would serve the many. What he left was terrorist state as despotic and autocratic as the czar had ever been. Questions for Review and Discussion 1. Do you think a revolution in Russia could have been avoided? If so, how? When? 2. Czarist Russia was an autocracy. Define “autocracy.” 3. Nicholas hoped to increase his popularity through the Russ-Japanese War. What were the aims of the war? The outcome? Its place in history? 4. Examine the reforms instituted by Czar Alexander II. What was accomplished? 5. Identify the following: a. Bolsheviks b. Mensheviks c. Dumas d. Soviet e. Red Guard f. Cheka g. Red Terror 6. Many topics were mentioned in the video that should be explored in greater depth. Choose one of the following subjects to research: a. Marxism b. War Communism c. New Economic Policy (NEP) d. The October Manifesto |
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