Russian Revolution

• RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

*** The movie Nicholas and Alexandra (in Foothill High School's library - VC 791.43) goes along with these notes.

Conditions

• Largest country in Europe
• For centuries the czars had tried to turn their backward country into a unified nation and world power
• Tried reforms but they found if they gave them some freedom they only wanted more
• As a result periods of tolerance and reform were followed by longer periods of harsh rule
• Early in the 1800's Russia remained one of the most firmly autocratic states in the world - one of the least developed

Internally divided

• Badly ruled
• Absolutist Romanov dynasty since the 17th century controlled with a huge secret police

Tsar Nicholas

• Grandson of Queen Victoria
• Became Czar in 1894 - 26 years old
• * 5' 6" tall
• Too gentle and too reserved to be a good autocrat
• Goal to make Russia a respected world power
• A devoted family man who led a simple, pious life
• What he really loved was spending time with his family - not ruling
• Married Alexandra - German princess - Queen Victoria's granddaughter - ***met at a family wedding
• Daughters - Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia
• Son - Alexis
• His trust in the tradition of the Russian autocracy blinded him to the fact that times had changed

Sergie Witte (VEET-yeh) - czar's ablest minister

• Tried to build up Russia's industries - Russia's industrial revolution did not begin until 1890's - workers suffered low pay, long hours and bad working conditions - lived in dismal shacks or huge communal barracks - they had no legal way to improvement through direct action -trade unions were banned - strikes considered criminal activities - czarist police would brutally suppress the protesters
• Raised taxes and borrowed money from abroad
• Brought in foreign experts
• Sent Russians abroad to study
• Pushed for completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad - longest continuous rail line in the world - 5,750 miles long - (much has been electrified - now joins the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria to form a route across the whole of Asia)
• Also built other railroad lines
• Boosted the growth of heavy industry - particularly iron and steel
• For a while Russia prospered

• Even with the improvements Russia was the least developed economically in the 19th century

Peasants

• Farming still supported the nation - serfs (*would be the last to be released from serfdom in Europe) - was the most unproductive in all of Europe
• Few peasants had enough land to support their families
• Less then 2% could read
• One in three died their first year
• Lived in pathetic hovels - built from loosely fitted logs - brush and straw for roofs - no chimneys - they didn't want a spark to set the roof on fire - smoke filled the house and went out the cracks - windows merely holes in the wall covered with something translucent, like stretched and dried bulls bladders
• They were wasted from malnutrition, disease, ignorance and crushing poverty
• Crowded
• Long wooden benches used as tables and beds
• Kept their animals inside - ex. one house had 10 to 15 lambs with their mothers - 2 or 3 pigs with their piglets - 2 or 3 calves and sometimes a colt - helped keep people warm
• Excrement of man and animals left inside the house - animals usually as hungry as the people and they ate the excrement - caused a lot of sickness (flu, cholera, diphtheria)
• Many peasants left to work in factories

Discontent spread to factory workers as industrialization began

Workers unhappy with their low standard of living and their lack of political power

Censorship tightened

Religious persecutions increased - many Jews were either terrorized or killed in mob attacks called pogroms - between 1882 and 1914 millions of Jews emigrated from Russia to seek a better life in the United States, Canada and western Europe

Czars tried to "russify" non-Russians by forcing them to use the Russian language in schools and local governments - this embittered many non-Russians such as the Poles and Finns

Upper classes resented the influence of foreign companies

Critics of the government disagreed over what changes were needed - eventually many Russians revolutionaries accepted the view of history set forth by Karl Marx - believed the revolution would come from the proletariat ( the working class) - not the peasants

Russo-Japanese War

• War - Russia vs Japan
• Russia wanted to take over Korea - Japan had seized control from China a few years before
• Russia thought Japan was militarily weak - didn't try to avoid war
• One Russian official even welcomed "a little victorious war to stem the tide of revolution"
• Japan struck first - without a declaration of war - February 1904 - fleet attacked Port Arthur - Russian naval base on the Liaotung peninsula
• Russia unprepared for war - went badly on all fronts
• Army and navy suffered humiliating defeats
• May 27, 1905 the Russian fleet sailed all the way around Africa - had one battle with the Japanese - lasted less than an hour ( ***note - Because of this battle, in WW II, the Japanese were always looking for the one big battle that would cause the U.S. to give up, since it had worked with the Russians.
• War unpopular with the Russian people - partly because it prevented much needed reform at home
• Russia badly beaten
• Created an impression of military incompetence to the rest of the world
• Ended in 1905 with a peace treaty that humiliated Russia
• Revealed the weakness of the government

Revolution of 1905 - February 1904 to September 1905

• Revolts broke out all over Russia - different groups - each group had its own set of demands
• Russia corrupt and inefficient
• Bureaucracy produced food shortages in the major cities
• Peoples patriotism turned to bitterness
• January 22,1905 thousands of unarmed workers marched on the palace at St. Petersburg (this happened during the war with Japan)
• A group of unarmed workers carried a petition to ask Nicholas for reforms - over 200,000 marchers- Czar not even there - was at his estate 15 miles away
• Led by Father George Gapon
• Palace guard (Cossacks) opened fire - several hundred killed or wounded (one source says over 500 another says 200)
• Aroused fierce anger against the government
• Strikes shut down railroads, telegraph system and government offices
• Workers in St. Petersburg formed a soviet ( representative council) - to lead the strikers
• Crowds carried red banners and posters demanding reforms
• Known as Bloody Sunday
• this started the revolution of 1905
• protest meetings - strikes - violence broke out
• Groups of workers organized to lead by the soviets - Lenin and Trotsky were active in S. Petersburg

Czar shocked and frightened by this mass outburst issued the October Manifesto

• Called for the formation of Russia's first parliament - the imperial Duma
• Made laws
• Levied taxes
• Legalized political parties and trade unions

Czar was forced to agree to:

• A constitution
• Civil rights
• National parliament
• Became a constitutional monarchy
• Article 87 - the czar could dissolve the Duma at any time and pass decrees with out it  - Stolypin used this

Most Russians satisfied with the reforms

The tsar then called in loyal army troops to crush uprisings throughout the country

The Revolution of 1905 ran out of steam

The first two Dumas (1906, 1907) are dismissed by the czar when they asked for reforms

The third and fourth Dumas did pass some reforms - actually represented the interests of the wealthy more than the interests of peasants and workers - the rich had more seats - Russians had more seats than non-Russians

Anti-Government groups continued despite censorship and police

• Radicals  - wanted changes in the economy and the political systems
• Terrorist - used violence and assassination

Revolution Begins - World War I

Beginning Russia warmly supported the czar and armies

Problems

• Unprepared to fight
• Many top military commanders proved to be incompetent - *** The Minister of War bragged that he had not read a military manual in 25 years.  He felt it was not honorable to use modern weapons, like machine guns, in battle.
• Waste - corruption - inefficiency of bureaucracy
• Material and food shortages at home and on the front
• War casualties astronomical
• Military moral was at rock bottom as early as 1915 - troops had no supplies - soldiers poorly equipped - no guns ( ***sent into battle and told to pick up a gun when some one was killed)
• Transportation network was unable to meet the needs of the army and the economy - both soldiers and cities were starving

Rasputin

• Gained entrance to the royal family because he could stop the bleeding of their son Alexis who was a hemophiliac - ( ***He could lay his hands on the boy and stop his bleeding.  It has never been figured out how he did this.)
• He was a peasant born in Siberia in the 1870's
• He  rarely bathed
• He was a heavy drinker and womanizer
• "He also lacked table manners and preferred to eat with his hands peasant style - *** his more passionated fans took pleasure in licking his fingers clean - usually he fell into a drunken stupor after lunch" (This is from the book The Man Who Murdered Rasputin by Christopher Dobson)

Nicholas II was at the front directing the war - 1915

• Left Alexandra and Rasputin ( *** Name means "dissolute" and he was.) running the government
• Alexandra a firm believer in absolute monarchy - she ignored the czar's top advisers - only trusted Rasputin (He was a starets.  This was a title given to itinerant preachers that wandered the countryside.)- People warned her Rasputin was a greedy and corrupt man - she refused to believe them - allowed him to make more and more decisions

Finally a group of nobles murdered Rasputin in 1916 - If you want a more complete description go to http://historyhouse.com

• Invited to a home to meet the man's wife (Prince Felix Yusupov) - (Rasputin actually bathed that day.)
• The prince's friends are upstairs listening to the only record they own - Yankee Doodle Dandy over and over
• Rasputin is given poisoned wine and poisoned cakes (cyanide of potassium) - greedily consumed them without visible effects - he keeps partying until after 2:00 in the morning and then decides to leave
• The prince panics and goes upstairs and asks his friends what to do and it's decided he better shoot him
• The prince comes back down and orders Rasputin to bow to a crucifix on the wall - Yusopov shoots him in the back and brings him to all fours - then left him to die - (They don't want to shoot him any more because it would make more of a mess.)
• Rasputin managed to scramble up the stairs and goes through a side door into the courtyard
• He was followed (by Purishkevich - a conspirator) and shot 4 more times and then kicked in the temple
• More shots brought a policeman who was told a dog was being shot to explain the blood
• The supposed corpse was hastily bundled over the side of one of the Neva bridges
• The autopsy is said to have found water in the lungs
• Because of their high station and widespread sympathy for their act in influential circles the murders escaped serious punishment

3 million killed the first year

Large territories lost

By 1917 military had little respect for their officers or the czar - moral low - began to desert in large numbers

Food shortages

Workers on strike

Chaos through out the empire

February Revolution

• Riots broke out in Petrograd in February - (St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd in August 1914 because the original name seemed too German - 1924 name again changed to Leningrad)
• Spontaneous and without direction of any revolutionary group
• Government taken completely by surprise
• The troops (mostly young peasants) sent to crush the rioters joined them instead

March 1917 more strikes and rioting

When the soldiers were ordered to shoot he rioters - they shot their officers instead and joined the rebellion

A week after the rioting began - Nicholas was forced to abdicate - March 15, 1917 - for himself and his son Alexis - in favor of his brother Michael

Michael in turn abdicated the following day in favor of a Provisional Government

Prince George Lvov - becomes head of state

• A liberal aristocrat and member of the Constitutional Democrat Party (Kadets) in the Duma

Provisional Government

• Organized by the Duma - democratic
• Middle class in charge - liberal
• Opposition to this government - strongest from Lenin and Trotsky
• The new government faced the problems of the war and the general collapse of the economy
• The major parties in the Duma supported the Provisional Government -especially the Kadets
• the Mensheviks (means minority - they had the most members) were a Marxist party which supported a new government - they believed that Russia must have a bourgeois state before a socialist one could exist
• The Bolsheviks (means majority - actually they were the smaller group) - a radical Marxist party that opposed the new government - it wanted the power for itself
• Early on the provisional Government decided to continue to fight in the war - this was a BAD decision
• In July 1917 - Alexander Kerensky replaced Prince Lvov as prime minister - he was a moderate socialist - wanted a Western-style parliamentary government and to continue the war
• By the summer of 1917 the Russian people had lost faith in the government - wanted: real change, land reform, an end to hunger, self-determination for non-Russians and an end to war
• Bolsheviks knew this was the moment to seize power
• At the czar's overthrow the Bolshevik leaders had been either in jail or in exile
• April 1917 - a month after the overthrow the Germans sent Lenin and his companions back to Petrograd (some 30 men and women) - hoped they would add to the turmoil within Russia and distract the Russians from the war with Germany - Long Black Train

October Revolution - (Bolshevik Revolution)

( *** It took place in November.  The Russians still followed the Julian calendar which was 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.  In 1918 the Soviet Union switched to the Gregorian calendar and now celebrates the October Revolution in November.)

Lenin - b.1870

• Real name Vladimil Ilyich Ulyanov (ool-YH-NOF)
• From a well-educated Russian family
• His father was a respected school official - son of a serf - d. 1886 of a cerebral hemorrhage
• His mother the daughter of a doctor
• He was a bright and studious child - he received high grades
• He became a revolutionary while still in his teens after his older brother (Alexander - called Sasha) was executed for plotting against the czar - his brother refused to have a lawyer or ask for mercy - he was hanged May 20, 1887
• Planned to become a lawyer
• As a university student he studied the works of Karl Marx - he decided to devote his life to overthrowing the czarist rule - wanted to set up a socialist state
• Lenin studied law on his own - passed the exam - he was first in a class of 124  in 1891
• 1895 - arrested for Marxist activities - sent to Siberia until 1900
• Married 1898 - Nadezhda Krupskaya
• 1900 - shortly after he entered the university he was kicked out of Russia and sent to Germany - he went to Switzerland
• He had been expelled for taking part in a student meeting seeking more freedom for the students - it was a peaceful protest
• He was considered dangerous because of his older brother
• He worked for most of the next 17 years against czarist rule
• Lived in St. Petersburg and practiced law - was in exile when the revolution started

Bolsheviks were disciplined and could act as a tightly knit unit - formed a worker's militia called the Red Guard

Lenin soon gained control of the soviets in the major cities (Petrograd and Moscow)

November 7 - arrested the members of the government and called for a general election

The Bolshevik Revolution also called the Russian Revolution - was over in a matter of hours

• The Red Guard joined by pro-Bolshevik soldiers and sailors seized the central government
• Captured government buildings in the capital and stormed the Winter Palace - site of Kerensky's Provisional Government
• All government ministers were arrested except Kerensky - he escaped and tried to fight Lenin - he failed and soon fled the country
• Changed the name to the Communist Party

Huge gap between the Bolshevik's plan for the future and the grim realities of Russian life

Still plagued by the miseries that had brought down the Provisional Government - hunger - fear - political upheaval

There was no effective government or army - no industry - no railway - no commerce - often no food

Election held November 7, 1917 - to elect a new Duma

• Mensheviks won
• Bolsheviks got 1/4 of the votes
• The Red Army surrounded the Duma and disbanded it
• The Bolsheviks became the only legal party - set up a party dictatorship
• End of the revolution
• Established a one-party state - what Marx called the "dictatorship of the proletariat"

Lenin revolutionized the economy and society - ended private property - all taken over by the state

Took over important industries and banking, railroads and shipping

By the winter of 1917 - 1918 Russia was defenseless before German troops

March 3, 1918 - new Soviet Union and the Central Powers forced to sign an unfavorable peace treaty - Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Lu tof)

• Very harsh
• It took Russia out of the war
• Germany took Poland the the Baltic states
• Germany and Austria-Hungary split the Ukraine

Opposition to the Bolsheviks began to gather strength - civil war became wide spread

April 1918 - the Allies landed in Vladivostok, Siberia to help 60,000 Czech and Slovaks that were prisoners of war of Russia

Bolshevik take over caused an anti-Communist civil war for 3 years - began in January 1918

Opponents known as the Whites

• Moderate socialist and supporters of parliamentary government
• Defenders of the czarist cause - mostly former Tsarist army officers and soldiers as well as nobles and ex-government officials
• Often unable to cooperate - they did not have a common objective
• Helped by foreign troops (France, Britain, U.S. and Japan)
• August 1918 - Allies occupied Archangel to protect supplies from Bolshevik troops
• Following summer (1919) - Allied soldiers landed in Murmansk to fight against Bolsheviks in the civil war - earning the eternal mistrust of the Soviet Government
• Allies fearing that communism would spread to the rest of Europe tried to destroy Lenin's regime
• Actually aroused Russian nationalism and drew the people into a more united front against the counterrevolutionaries

Lenin ordered that force be used to smash all opposition

• Afraid of losing power
• Wanted to establish a communist dictatorship - many Russians opposed this
• Soon spread to almost every part of Russia
• Red Army was organized by Leon Trotsky to battle the Whites - it was highly disciplined and organized -*** one unit performed poorly and they shot every 10th man
• The Whites were disorganized and battled one another as much as the Reds
• Conditions created by this war were worse for Russia than those of WW I
• Famine and disease killed thousands and casualties were in the millions

Both sides committed  terrible atrocities

Communist secret police created and soon began a campaign of terror

They executed tens of thousands of people thought to oppose the communists

Imprisonment of the royal family

• Kerensky hoped to save their lives by sending them to England - England refused to take them (Remember this was the tzar's cousin.)
• When the Bolsheviks took power all changed
• Lenin tried to use them as a bargaining chip with the Germans since they were relatives of the Kaiser (first cousins)
• When civil war broke out the family was moved to Siberia (Tobolsk) - treated well
• Then moved to Ekaterinburg a small town on the Trans-Siberian Railroad in the Ural Mountains - surrendered all privacy - close scrutiny of their guards - guards would deliver meaningless messages - followed the 4 girls to the bathroom - watched the family members get dressed - other times the family would go for 2 or 3 days without being fed
• With the civil war going bad for the Reds and the Whites getting close - troops opposing the Bolsheviks were advancing along the railway
• It appeared that the family might be freed
• The Bolsheviks ordered the entire family executed
• On the night of July 16, 1918, they were awakened and taken to a basement room
• They were read a formal statement of execution
• Guards opened fire on the family (the Czar was 49 - the Czarina was 46) - (***when they were shot jewels scattered across the floor - they had been sewen in their clothing )
• Also killed were the family doctor - 3 servants- Anastasia's little spaniel which she was holding in her arms
• ***A description of this is in the book Nicholas and Alexandra p. 517 - it is supposition because this book was written 20 or 30 years ago
• The bodies were taken and dumped in a mine shaft
• Until 1990 nobody outside Russia knew exactly what happened
• The house was destroyed July 27, 1977 by orders of Boris Yeltsin during Brezhnev's reign
• July 17, 1998 their remains were reburied in St. Petersburg - 2 bodies were missing - Alexis and one girl (There is a site on the web that claims Alexis lived, moved to the U.S., married and had a family.)
• *** For years after the execution a woman claimed to be Anastasia.  Some believed her and others thought she was after money.  (There was a great deal of money in Swiss banks.)  Finally in 1993, after her death, scientists compared her DNA to a descendant of Czarina Alexandra.  It did not match.  It showed she carried DNA of Polish peasants.  The supposition is that she was a child of a servant and that is how she learned about the family.
• After the revolution - between 1917 and 1921 - over 25 million Russians came down with typhus and over 2.5 million died
• The worst typhus epidemic in history - lice carry Reckettsia bacteria which causes typhus

Early communist State

Red army eventually defeated the White Army - 1921

All land taken over by the state - nationalized

• Run by peasant committees
• Broke their promise to redistribute the land among the peasants
• Surplus crops seized from the farmers to feed the army and people in the cities
• The farmers refused to grow more than was necessary for themselves
• 1921 - more than 30 million Russians on the brink of starvation - severe famine began - resulted in the deaths by starvation of 5 million Russians

Also took over industry, banks and foreign trade

• Running of factories by inexperienced workers disastrous - *** communism taught that everyone was equal so they switched the jobs around every 2 or 3 months - one month a person might be running the company and the next sweeping the floors - obviously it didn't work so they stopped it
• Gave just enough freedom to save the Russian economy

These measures only sped up Russia's decline

Commerce came to a standstill and production fell disastrously

Many thousands died from hunger, cold and disease (one source says 27 million total)

1921 - as soon as the war was over Lenin introduced the NEP (New Economic Policy)

• Temporarily put aside his plan for a state-controlled economy
• He let some small factories, businesses and farms return to private ownership
• Small business people did well
• Peasants more satisfied - except for a tax on surplus grain they were free to grow and sell their produce
• This was a very un-Marxist idea - the effect was the rapid recovery of the Soviet economy
• The government kept control of major industries, banks, and means of communication

The government was moved from Petrograd to the Kremlin (means fort) an old palace-fortress in Moscow

The party led by members of the communist Party's Politburo (political office)

• Backed by about half a million loyal Communist Party members who made up less than one percent of the population - almost all had been industrial workers
• In theory the members of the Party were elected
• In practice all decisions were made at the top - just like with the Czar's government
• Party leaders also ran trade unions, youth leagues, and other organizations

All who opposed the communists were killed or exiled to labor camps in Siberia (called gulags which means prison) - some of these were still in existence even after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991

Other political parties were banned

Opposition disappeared

Communists enjoyed no real popularity

The Communists tried to implement the teachings of Karl Marx - some worked - a lot did not

• Education - 1920's - teacher authority removed - students allowed to study when and how they felt like it - returned to the old ways finally
• Allowed unlimited divorce - if you wanted a divorce you went to a government office and it was granted right away - this eventually done away with
• Kept social equality of sexes - women given every opportunity to develop - doubled the work force
• Educational opportunities for all retained
• Social leveling continued
• Of course forcing the farmers into communes did not work as mentioned earlier

Religion

• From the beginning the Party opposed the Russian Orthodox Church and all other organized religions
• According to Marx religion was a tool that the ruling class used to exploit the workers (He was right in many cases as the church was controlled by the nobility.)
• The churches suffered greatly under the Communist rule
• Church lands and property seized
• Many clergy jailed
• Church schools were closed
• State schools taught that God did not exist
• Atheism - disbelief in the existence of God - was encouraged
• By the 1930's the state recognized religion could not be up rooted - had to be tolerated - peasants deeply devoted - some Jewish rights returned (bakeries) - Jews very oppressed under communist rule - today the government still discriminates against Jews and many are still trying to leave
• In June 1988 the Soviet Union celebrated the country's 1000th year of Christianity
• the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest organization in the Soviet Union - membership far out numbers that of the Communist Party

Propaganda

• Party controlled information
• Cut the Soviet Union off from the outside world
• Used strict censorship to silence it's critics at home
• Bombarded the public with its own ideology (set of beliefs) - a mixture of Marxism and Lenin's ideas on the role of the Party in building socialism
• Lenin tried to give the Soviet people a faith in the Party and their nation
• Laid the base for a powerful dictatorship by building a strong, well organized party

1922 - Created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Lenin died January 21, 1924 after a series of strokes - ***his body is still on display in Moscow

After Lenin's death a 3 man coalition emerged

Struggle for power - Trotsky vs. Stalin - became bitter rivals for command of the Communist Party

Leon Trotsky

• Jewish
• Widely traveled journalist
• Brilliant writer
• Forceful speaker
• Skilled organizer
• He led the "Left" of the Communist Party
• He favored the seizure of peasant crops to finance the industrialization of the Soviet Union
• He wanted immediate collectivization of agriculture
• His biggest divergence from Stalin concerned the need for immediate international revolution - to safeguard the Soviet state and strengthen communism
• The Red Army was his base of support

Joseph Stalin

• means "man of steel"
• real name Joseph Djugashvili - (1879 - 1953) -***5' 4" tall
• Originally from Georgia - region in the Caucasus Mountains
• Peasant origin
• As a boy studied for the priesthood - only way he could get an education - expelled for his political views
• Shoemaker's son
• ***As a boy (7) he had smallpox - children called him "Pocky" - he had severe scars on his face
• While Lenin and Trotsky were living safely abroad he stayed in Russia
• His activities earned him years in prison and a long exile in Siberia
• 1907 organized robberies to get money for the party
• Between 1902-1913 arrested 8 times - exiled 7 times - escaped 6 times
• Quite possibly he was a spy for the czarest government
• 1922 made general secretary of the Communist Party
• Did day to day work of managing the party
• Nobody respected him
• Coarse, vulgar, crude, uneducated
• Resented being looked down on
• ambitious
• Unprincipled
• Built up a loyal following
• Rode the fence - always wound up on the winning side
• Placed his followers in office
• Lenin soon came to distrust him - he wanted Trotsky - not Stalin to succeed him as head of the Party
• Not as well known as Trotsky
• Stalin led the "Right" faction of the Party - in the 1920's the Right was in favor of the continuation of the NEP (Stalin will change in the 1930's) - advocated "socialism in one country"
• He wanted to build the Soviet state into such a power no capitalist nation could be a threat - then spread the revolution
• The communist Party organization was his power base
• Used his position as general secretary to gain control of the Party
• Shrewd politician
• Nicolai Bukharin - editor of Pravda (newspaper) - supported Stalin
• By 1927 Stalin had amassed enough support to oust Trotsky from all of his offices and send him into exile to Siberia
• In 1929 Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union
• Trotsky and his supporters were driven out of the Party - eventually out of the Soviet Union - In 1940 he was assassinated in Mexico by an agent of Stalin - ***stabbed many times in the face with an ice pick - he died the next day
• By 1928 - Stalin eliminated all other potential rivals
• Became an absolute dictator - Stalin Constitution made him an absolute ruler
• He ruled through terror - secret police and gulags(prisons)
• His rivals either gave in to his plans or were wiped out
• 1929 - on his fiftieth birthday - Stalin was hailed as Lenin's successor
• Under his rule the family gained new importance because an increased population was needed to carry out national goals
• Childbearing was encouraged - divorce was made more difficult

Atheism remained the official position on religion - government continued to persecute the Orthodox Church and other religious groups

Five-Year Plans

• Two goals: rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture
• Believed they could only be met by dictatorial controls because the huge amounts of money needed would have to be squeezed out of the peasants
• Set ambitious quotas for the production of steel, coal, oil, and hydroelectric power, as well as for consumer goods
• All individual efforts and national resources used for state production
• The capitalist measures revived by Lenin were wiped out
• Consumer goods limited - food rationing
• To achieve a strong military it became state supported by heavy industry
• Success not impressive for the first plan - begun in 1928 - goal to increase output by 250% before 1933 - to reach the target the nation had to cut down on consumer goods - standard of living dropped sharply
• Caused staggering problems because the government concentrated on quantity not quality
• Many shoddy goods were produced
• Working conditions were grim - workers received little pay - poorly fed - liven in overcrowded housing
• Government could force worker to take any job where they were needed - anywhere in the country

Stalin replaced the private farms with collective ones

Stalin's demand for greater farm output turned into a war against his own people - millions died

Expected to use modern machinery and scientific farming methods to produce more food than ever before

Peasants saw collectivization as the loss of their freedom

• Resisted giving up lands
• Stalin ruthless - used armed force - tanks, artillery, bombers - sometimes set entire villages on fire
• Brought terror to much of the nation
• Prime target the kulaks - more prosperous farmers who had prospered under the NEP - Stalin began seizing their crops to finance industrialization - they resisted - he crushed them - between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 perished
• Over 50% of the farms collectivized
• Stalin saw them as enemies of socialism
• 1920's - told the Party workers to "liquidate the kulaks as a class"
• Thousands shot or sent to gulags (forced labor camps) in Siberia (***They returned 15 or 20 years later and did the same thing to the children that had grown up.)
• Many starved or died from the miserable living conditions
• Many of the remaining peasants killed their horses, cows and pigs (95%) and burned their crops rather than turn them over to the collective
• Had terrible consequences for years to come
• 1932 - government seized nearly all the grain in the Ukraine - this caused a severe famine - estimated 3 million starved to death - 4 million sent to labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere
• 1932-1933 famine hit many parts of the Soviet Union - about 5 million peasants died from starvation
• Even though people were staving Stalin went on selling food abroad
• As many as 10 million people died as a result of collectivization

By the mid-1930's collective farms were the rule in the Soviet Union - each made up of 100's of households

Stalin made one concession

• Allowed the peasants to keep one small plot of land for their private use
• Food grown on these plots could be sold on the open market for whatever price it would bring
• Peasants worked much harder on these private plots
• They became the Soviet Union's most productive farmlands

1933 - the Second Five-Year Plan began but was held up by inefficiency and a shortage of skilled workers - eventually the Plan was enforced

1938 - the Third Five-Year Plan went into effect but was cut short by WW II

None of the five-year plans met their goals in the allotted time

In the short span of 12 years the Soviet Union became a major industrial nation

Today their agricultural record is still poor - they have trouble raising surplus crops - quite often they import food

Political Terror

• Many blamed Stalin for the millions of lives lost
• Even his own family criticized him
• His wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva (al-lee-loo-YEH-vuh) urged him to moderate his policies
• She died of an apparent suicide in 1932 - probably helped on orders from Stalin

Great Purge

• 1934-1939 to destroy the opposition
• Some of the most important Communists, "Old Bosheviks", were put on trial - those who had known Lenin from the early days - he feared they knew much about the true feelings of Lenin
• Show Trials were held in the 1930's where they all confessed to treason
• They were forced to make public confessions of crimes they could not possibility have committed - then executed
• Got rid of the top Party members - Bukharin and Kalinin
• 100's executed or sent to Siberia - important party officials - intellectuals - scientists - workers - collective farmers - leaders of non-Russian nationalist movements
• Got rid of most of the officer corps of the Red Army (he feared their ties to Trotsky) - this left the Soviet Union in a disastrous state when WW II began in 1941
• Only ones spared were obedient bureaucrats who would not challenge Stalin
• It has been estimated that approximately 8 million people were arrested and 800,000 executed during the Great Purge
• Those arrested but not killed were sentenced to prison camp ***Usually what happened was if you were innocent you got a 25 year prison term - if you were guilty you were executed.  Stalin's goal was to wipe out whole segments of society.  Example all engineers.  This is covered extensively in the Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Under Stalin every person's total submission to the new order was required

Part of his power came from his total domination of the Communist Party

He organized it into an elite party with a selective membership

Membership began with participation in youth organizations - Young Pioneers and Komosol - the best were recommended to higher level in the party

Whoever led the Party (General Secretary) was also the Premier of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union became a totalitarian state

The government controls every aspect of the lives of it's citizens

It will collapse in 1919

***The following is from the Parade magazine, December 15, 2002

• "Russia now has less than half the population of the U.S. and that number is falling fast.  Russia's Health Ministry says only 33% of the nation's newborns and 10% of it's teens are healthy.  Tuberculosis is raging, and the county has about 4 million heroin addicts.  Alcoholism, drug abuse and the use of abortion as a primary method of birth control have left more than 20% of Russian couples infertile.  Russia also has one of the world's fastest-growing HIV epidemic.  Within 6 year, 5% of the population may be infected.  the U.S. strategic forecasting firm Stratfor says that without a cure for HIV, Russia's population could fall to 77 million by 2050.  This would mark the sharpest peacetime population decline anywhere since the plague ravaged Europe in the 1300"s and it would diminish Russia as a key player on the global scene."