BOLSHEVIK CONSOLIDATION OF POWER
Its a Party!: The Bolshevik Consolidation of Power 1917-1924
A. Lengyel 21 September, 2014
A huge power-vacuum was created following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917. After the fall of the Romanov Dynasty, who had ruled the Russian empire for over 300 years, it was unclear who would come to the forefront of Russian politics and how the Empire would be governed. Numerous factions within Russian society sought to fill the power-vacuum created by the fall of the Romanovs. What was at stake was not only control of the state, but also control of the economic and societal future of Russia. Eventually the Bolshevik faction, led by Vladimir Lenin, gained enough power and influence to control the government. This control was not initially absolute however, and the Bolsheviks had to defend their right to rule at multiple times between 1917 and 1924, when the Bolsheviks emerged as the dominant agent in Russian politics and culture.
“Trade Unions are the Builders of Communism!” (1921)
Russia was in a state of civil-war following the fall of the autocracy and the October Revolution, with anti-Bolshevik factions including land-owners, republicans, conservatives, liberals, and middle-class citizens uniting to resist the “red” Bolshevik regime (Figes). This ragtag force of resistance became known as the “white” army. Although the Whites were led by a number of former military commanders such as General Mikhail Alekseev and General Lavr Korilov, the movement was always at a disadvantage compared to the Red Army (Freeze 296). The empowered Bolsheviks controlled the most-central provinces, the very heart of Russia. This simplified the logistics of supplying and communicating with the army. Meanwhile, the White forces were spread throughout the Russian hinterland, poorly supplied and in a near-constant state of disarray. The high-point for the White Army was the capture of Orel, a town only 300 kilometers from Moscow (Freeze 297-298). The civil-war ended in 1920 as the Red Army pushed into White-controlled lands, recapturing the lost territory and forcing the remaining White combatants out of Russia (Freeze 298).
The Leaders of the Voluntary “White” Army: Gen. Sergey Markov (right), Gen. Anton Denikin (center), and Gen. Mikhail Alekseev (right).The most immediate concern of the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution was not only gaining greater control of the government, but also growing their base of power and influence among the people themselves. It is fair to say that the Bolsheviks won the battle of public relations. Bolshevik popularity continued to rise throughout the revolution, growing from 23,600 members in 1917 to over 750,000 members in 1921 (Freeze 294). This growth had as much to do with the mistakes of other parties as it did with successful Bolshevik tactics. The Kornilov affair created a fear of counter-revolution among the Russian public. After recently emerging from the yoke of autocracy, no one in Russia was willing to surrender the societal gains which the counter-revolutionaries were said to oppose. The debacle made public the instability of the post-Imperial government, and disintegrated support for the provisional government run by Alexander Kerensky (Freeze 288).
Bolshevik popularity continued to grow after the October Revolution, and it was in this time that the Bolsheviks began to consolidate their power and transition from revolutionaries to legitimate rulers. An important cornerstone in the legitimization of Bolshevik authority was ideology. The idea of class warfare was always emphasized, with socialism always being the positive antithesis to the exploitative capitalist system (Freeze 298-299). An example of such ideology is pictured at the top of the page, with the top of the poster dramatizing the capitalist past, the middle representing the present-time, and the bottom depicting the quite Utopian-looking socialist future.
Bolshevik delegates to the 10th Party Congress, seated with Lenin. (1921)Bolshevik popularity began to wane in 1921. The public grew weary of a government that had failed to keep its promises of new economic order, equality, and prosperity. In response, the Tenth Party Congress endorsed the New Economic Policy (NEP). The policy sought to appease those who were suffering from the civil-war, stabilize the economy by attempting to regularize supply and production, and generate capital for further industrialization and modernization. In general, the NEP meant to lay the foundation for a future socialist economic system.
The Eleventh Party Congress of 1922 would prove to be Lenin’s last. The Congress focused of further consolidating and enhancing their authority. Lenin also initiated a cleansing of the Russian bureaucracy, in which many of the bureaucrats left over from the autocracy were forced out of the government and replaced by loyal party officials (Freeze 310).
By the time of Lenin’s death in 1924 the socialist government had firmly entrenched itself as the source of power in the Russian state. Though the Party was by no means unified on every issue, the threat of war had passed and the soviet government had instituted the reforms which they had promised seven years earlier.
Works Cited
Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy – History of the Russian Revolution. Penguin Books, 1996.
Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Siegelbaum, Lewis. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. n.d. https://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php (accessed September 20, 2014).
https://revolutionsarethelocomotivesofhistory.wordpress.com/igcse-russia/bolsheviks-taking-power/
AN OVERVIEW OF BOLSHEVIK IDEOLOGY
Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Marxism–Leninism, an ideology of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Union's ideological commitment to achieving communism included the development socialism in one country and peaceful coexistence with capitalist countries while engaging in anti-imperialism to defend the international proletariat, combat capitalism and promote the goals of communism. The state ideology of the Soviet Union—and thus Marxism–Leninism—derived and developed from the theories, policies and political praxis of Lenin and Stalin.
The most influential type of socialism in Russian history is Marxism, which is based on the writings of Karl Marx (1818–1883), a German philosopher and economist. His many books include Das Kapital and (together with Friedrich Engels) The Communist Manifesto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union#:~:text=The%20ideology%20of%20the%20Communist,the%20dictatorship%20of%20the%20proletariat.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zyc72hv/revision/6
THE OCTOBER COUP (1917)
Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
October Revolution of 1917 (Zhovtneva revoliutsiia). The Bolshevik coup staged on 25 October (7 November NS) 1917 in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) precipitated a full-scale revolution in Russia and the outlying territories that had formerly constituted parts of its empire. After the fall of the tsarist regime following the February Revolution of 1917 the Provisional Government assumed power. It was unable, however, to control the volatile social and political conditions in the former empire. As their immediate goal the majority of the population wanted Russia to pull out of the First World War. As a broader goal they demanded wide-ranging social reforms and the redistribution of land. The non-Russian peoples of the empire wanted national autonomy and equality. Meanwhile the Bolsheviks and other left-wing groups, whose power base consisted of workers' and soldiers' councils (see Soviet), pressed for a continuation of the revolution. The ineffectiveness and growing unpopularity of the Provisional Government made it feasible for them to consider continuing it through force of arms.
The principal organizer of the October Revolution was the Russian Social Democratic Workers' party (Bolshevik), whose chief ideologue was Vladimir Lenin. On the eve of the revolution Leon Trotsky, the head of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Petrograd, had almost all of the locally stationed troops and a large part of the workers under his control. On the night of 7 November he mounted an armed insurrection and arrested the members of the Provisional Government. The Second All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, then announced that the soviets had taken power. They formed the first Soviet government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). It was headed by Lenin, and included Trotsky, Anatolii Lunacharsky, A. Rykov, and Joseph Stalin. The Sovnarkom issued a series of decrees concerning peace, land, the establishment of workers' control, and the nationalization of all heavy industry. It also issued the Declaration on the Rights of the Peoples of Russia on 15 November 1917, in which the equality of all peoples was proclaimed, and in which the ‘right of self-determination, even unto separation’ was formally recognized.
By early 1918 the Bolsheviks had managed to seize power fairly easily in most cities and gubernias of Russia. They attempted to stage a similar coup in Ukraine but found considerably stronger opposition. The support for the Bolsheviks was much weaker there, where there were only 5,000 members of Bolshevik organizations (almost exclusively located in the cities). They consisted primarily of Russian or Russified working-class elements in the Donbas region, Katerynoslav, and Kharkiv. Moreover the Central Rada managed to consolidate its hold on power and on support among the Ukrainian masses through its national and socialist policies.
In the early stages of the October Revolution there was also a third force in Ukraine, the Russian administration of the Provisional Government and the Army Staff of the Kyiv Military District, which supported the Russian administration. Under threat of Russian right-wing elements in Kyiv, the Central Rada, together with socialist groups of national minorities, established the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks initially also participated. The Bolsheviks left to form their own revolutionary committee after the Central Rada refused to recognize the Soviet government in Petrograd. The initial round of fighting between the three forces resulted in a victory for the Central Rada and the proclamation of the Ukrainian National Republic on 20 November 1917.
Although the Bolsheviks' attempts to seize power in Ukraine as a whole failed at first, they managed to gain control of Kharkiv and some Russified cities in the Donbas region through their workers' and soldiers' soviets. They hoped to achieve a formal proclamation of soviet power at an All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies, which they convened on 17–19 December in Kyiv. The peasant-dominated congress failed to support the Bolsheviks (fewer than 100 of the more than 2,000 delegates were Bolshevik supporters), however, and even gave the Central Rada a vote of confidence. The pro-Bolshevik delegates reconvened a week later in Kharkiv at an All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets that included a greater number of deputies from the Donbas and Kryvyi Rih regions. On 25 December 1917 that congress proclaimed Soviet rule in Ukraine and elected a central executive committee of Ukraine and a government body, the People's Secretariat. That body contended for legitimacy with the Central Rada and the General Secretariat of the Central Rada.
The creation of a rival Soviet government in Ukraine made it possible for the subsequent armed intervention by Bolshevik troops from Russia during the Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21 to be presented as a class rather than a national struggle. It also marked an important turning point in Ukraine's struggle for independence (1917–20), as the Bolsheviks demonstrated their willingness to force their state structure onto Ukraine in spite of the almost total absence of popular support.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vynnychenko, V. Vidrodzhennia natsiï, 3 vols (Vienna 1920)
Khrystiuk, P. Zamitky i materiialy do istoriï ukraïns’koï revoliutsiï 1917–1920 rr., 4 vols (Vienna 1921–2; New York 1969)
Antonov-Ovseenko, V. Zapiski o grazhdanskoi voine, 4 vols (Moscow 1924–33)
Velikaia Oktiabr’skaia Sotsialisticheskaia revoliutsiia na Ukraine, 3 vols (Kyiv 1957)
Mazlakh, S.; Shakhrai, V. On the Current Situation in the Ukraine, ed P.J. Potichnyj (Ann Arbor 1970)
Musiienko, V. Bil’shovyky Ukraïny v Zhovtnevii revoliutsiï (Kyiv 1976)
Borys, J. The Sovietization of Ukraine, 1917–1923: The Communist Doctrine and Practice of National Self-Determination, rev edn (Edmonton 1980)
LINKS
https://www.orlandofiges.info/section6_TheOctoberRevolution1917/LeninandtheOctoberCoup.php#anchor
https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Russian-Provisional-Government#ref1270812
Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
October Revolution of 1917 (Zhovtneva revoliutsiia). The Bolshevik coup staged on 25 October (7 November NS) 1917 in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) precipitated a full-scale revolution in Russia and the outlying territories that had formerly constituted parts of its empire. After the fall of the tsarist regime following the February Revolution of 1917 the Provisional Government assumed power. It was unable, however, to control the volatile social and political conditions in the former empire. As their immediate goal the majority of the population wanted Russia to pull out of the First World War. As a broader goal they demanded wide-ranging social reforms and the redistribution of land. The non-Russian peoples of the empire wanted national autonomy and equality. Meanwhile the Bolsheviks and other left-wing groups, whose power base consisted of workers' and soldiers' councils (see Soviet), pressed for a continuation of the revolution. The ineffectiveness and growing unpopularity of the Provisional Government made it feasible for them to consider continuing it through force of arms.
The principal organizer of the October Revolution was the Russian Social Democratic Workers' party (Bolshevik), whose chief ideologue was Vladimir Lenin. On the eve of the revolution Leon Trotsky, the head of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Petrograd, had almost all of the locally stationed troops and a large part of the workers under his control. On the night of 7 November he mounted an armed insurrection and arrested the members of the Provisional Government. The Second All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, then announced that the soviets had taken power. They formed the first Soviet government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). It was headed by Lenin, and included Trotsky, Anatolii Lunacharsky, A. Rykov, and Joseph Stalin. The Sovnarkom issued a series of decrees concerning peace, land, the establishment of workers' control, and the nationalization of all heavy industry. It also issued the Declaration on the Rights of the Peoples of Russia on 15 November 1917, in which the equality of all peoples was proclaimed, and in which the ‘right of self-determination, even unto separation’ was formally recognized.
By early 1918 the Bolsheviks had managed to seize power fairly easily in most cities and gubernias of Russia. They attempted to stage a similar coup in Ukraine but found considerably stronger opposition. The support for the Bolsheviks was much weaker there, where there were only 5,000 members of Bolshevik organizations (almost exclusively located in the cities). They consisted primarily of Russian or Russified working-class elements in the Donbas region, Katerynoslav, and Kharkiv. Moreover the Central Rada managed to consolidate its hold on power and on support among the Ukrainian masses through its national and socialist policies.
In the early stages of the October Revolution there was also a third force in Ukraine, the Russian administration of the Provisional Government and the Army Staff of the Kyiv Military District, which supported the Russian administration. Under threat of Russian right-wing elements in Kyiv, the Central Rada, together with socialist groups of national minorities, established the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks initially also participated. The Bolsheviks left to form their own revolutionary committee after the Central Rada refused to recognize the Soviet government in Petrograd. The initial round of fighting between the three forces resulted in a victory for the Central Rada and the proclamation of the Ukrainian National Republic on 20 November 1917.
Although the Bolsheviks' attempts to seize power in Ukraine as a whole failed at first, they managed to gain control of Kharkiv and some Russified cities in the Donbas region through their workers' and soldiers' soviets. They hoped to achieve a formal proclamation of soviet power at an All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies, which they convened on 17–19 December in Kyiv. The peasant-dominated congress failed to support the Bolsheviks (fewer than 100 of the more than 2,000 delegates were Bolshevik supporters), however, and even gave the Central Rada a vote of confidence. The pro-Bolshevik delegates reconvened a week later in Kharkiv at an All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets that included a greater number of deputies from the Donbas and Kryvyi Rih regions. On 25 December 1917 that congress proclaimed Soviet rule in Ukraine and elected a central executive committee of Ukraine and a government body, the People's Secretariat. That body contended for legitimacy with the Central Rada and the General Secretariat of the Central Rada.
The creation of a rival Soviet government in Ukraine made it possible for the subsequent armed intervention by Bolshevik troops from Russia during the Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21 to be presented as a class rather than a national struggle. It also marked an important turning point in Ukraine's struggle for independence (1917–20), as the Bolsheviks demonstrated their willingness to force their state structure onto Ukraine in spite of the almost total absence of popular support.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vynnychenko, V. Vidrodzhennia natsiï, 3 vols (Vienna 1920)
Khrystiuk, P. Zamitky i materiialy do istoriï ukraïns’koï revoliutsiï 1917–1920 rr., 4 vols (Vienna 1921–2; New York 1969)
Antonov-Ovseenko, V. Zapiski o grazhdanskoi voine, 4 vols (Moscow 1924–33)
Velikaia Oktiabr’skaia Sotsialisticheskaia revoliutsiia na Ukraine, 3 vols (Kyiv 1957)
Mazlakh, S.; Shakhrai, V. On the Current Situation in the Ukraine, ed P.J. Potichnyj (Ann Arbor 1970)
Musiienko, V. Bil’shovyky Ukraïny v Zhovtnevii revoliutsiï (Kyiv 1976)
Borys, J. The Sovietization of Ukraine, 1917–1923: The Communist Doctrine and Practice of National Self-Determination, rev edn (Edmonton 1980)
LINKS
https://www.orlandofiges.info/section6_TheOctoberRevolution1917/LeninandtheOctoberCoup.php#anchor
https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Russian-Provisional-Government#ref1270812
THE EARLY SOVIET GOVERNMENT
THE TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK
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THE CIVIL WAR
INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
THE BOLSHEVIKS AND THE POWER STRUGGLE FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF LENIN
THE CREATING OF THE USSR
STALIN, TROTSKY & OTHER BOLSHEVIK FIGURES IN THE 1920'S