History of RUSSIA: St. Vladimir to VladimirPutinPart 2By Vladimir Hnízdo

It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery,inside an enigma.

“I cannot forecast to you the actionof Russia.It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery,inside an enigma.

That key is Russian national interest.”

W. Churchill, October 1939

Part 2 1. World War I2. February Revolution 19173. October 1917 Revolution and the Bolshevik Dictatorship4. Civil War, Consolidation of the Soviet State5. Stalin, Victor of Succession Struggle6. Collectivization, Great Terror7. World War II8. Cold War, De-Stalinization9. Gorbachev, Perestroika, Collapse of the Soviet Union10. Putin’s Russia

World War I (1914-18)

Allies: France, Britain, Russia, USA (from 1917)vs.Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey

Outpouring of patriotism on both sidesBut Russian Bolsheviks against war (unlike most other socialists)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7B-nlmdX0g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CeylV-NloU

Russian Strategic Goals in North-East

Destruction of German rule in East Prussiaand of Austrian rule in Galicia and Bukovina

Initially, some success, but advance halted quicklyGerman offensive Spring 1915 decisive

Enormous costs by September 1915Pushed back 300 miles (Russian Poland, Galicia, most of Baltic lost)Loss of 2 million men (1 mil. as POW’s)

Imperial Russia’s deep deficiencieslack of preparednessInability of administration in critical situation

Tsar Nicolas II authority quickly weakeningGreat resentment of Empress Alexandra

Rasputin Affair

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Grigori+Rasputin+youtube&view=detail&mid=BA86DCBC386382B375A8BA86DCBC386382B375A8&FORM=VIRE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b3f2UykG0

February 1917 Revolution Triggered by food shortages

Petrograd general strike February 24

Bloody Sunday Feb. 25

Initial spontaneity, but Petrograd Soviet and Duma Feb. 28

Tsar abdicates March 2

Provisional Government with Soviet support

Two power centers: the Soviet (Menshevik and SR majority)and the PG (Kadets)

Aims of the Provisional Government

Kadet program: liberal revolution (universal equal civic and political rights)

Immediate aim: to establish order in country and armed forces continuation of the war

Elections to Constituent Assembly that would give permanent government and adopt a democratic constitution; eventually scheduled for November 1917

Any important reforms to be dealt with after the elections From beginning lacking effective means of control

Petrograd Soviet

Socialist parties: Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), Mensheviks, Bolsheviks initially in minority

Social revolution demands: army’s control to be passed to soldiers’ committees, land redistribution to peasants

1st ALL-Russian Congress of Soviets, early June 1917: 285 SRs, 248 Mensheviks, 105 Bolsheviks

Conditional support of the PG

Lenin’s Return Of decisive importance for the whole course of the Revolution Passage through Germany and Finland in a sealed railway

carriage, arranged by the Germans On his arrival April 3, April Theses: All power to the Soviets End of War Land to Peasants Radical, populist, startled even the most radical Bolsheviks Call for an immediate socialist proletarian revolution, skipping the

liberal “bourgeois” stage Belief that Central and Western Europe was on the brink of socialist

revolution; Russia – the weakest link in the imperialist chainhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRfvH37PmlU (Lenin’s return)

Vladimir I. Lenin Leon D. Trotsky Alexander F. Kerensky(1870 – 1924) (1879 – 1940) (1881 – 1970)

Implications for Bolsheviks: to organize masses against the PG Lenin manages to bring the Party round the Thesis, on the

strength of his personality and growing popularity of the anti-war stance with soldiers and workers

The war --- the most serious and divisive issue for the PG Soviet leaders, fearing civil war, form coalition with liberals in

PG, where now socialists (Mensheviks, SRs, SR-break-away Trudoviks) have 6 out of 16 posts Their policy: Revolutionary Defensism

But Bolsheviks’ determined anti-war opposition

June and July EventsFatal act of the PG: the offensive of June 1917After brief advance, German counter-offensiveCollapse, disintegration of Russian front, widespread

desertionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QkJjWIHFSA (Dr Zhivago, desertions)

PG coalition falls apartUprising when Petrograd garrison ordered to front,

Bolsheviks supporting them, but not decided yet to seizepower; the Soviet opposing

Uprising folds in

Alexander Kerensky (an SR) becomes the PG prime minister PG without Soviet support Anti-Bolshevik campaign

Most Bolshevik leaders (including Trotsky) arrestedLenin fleeing into hiding in Finland

Kornilov Affair, August 1917 General Kornilov appointed Commander-in-Chief by KerenskyPushes for measures curbing Soviet power in Army Sends Cossacks to occupy Petrograd and disarm its garrison Kerensky condemns KornilovBolsheviks “rehabilitated”, Trotsky released Kornilov’s move ends when his Cossacks lay down armsEnd result: Kerensky, PG seriously weakened, Bolsheviks strengthened

October 1917 Cooperation of socialist parties opens for some Bolsheviks the

prospect of attaining Soviet power politically But Lenin resolves for an uprising against the PG Rapidly changing political fortunes --- Moscow municipal

elections, end September: SR falling from 56% to 31%, Mensheviks from 14% to 4%, but Bolsheviks rising from 11% to 31% and Kadetsfrom 17% to 31%

Bolshevik Central Committee, against Lenin’s exhortations (still from his Finland hiding), resolves to wait for the 2nd All-Russian Soviet Congress for the transfer of power to the Soviets

Lenin returns secretly to Petrograd, and on October 10 forces the CC the decision to prepare for an uprising

October 16, the CC approves (19 votes to 2) an immediate armed uprising

The Soviet Congress delayed to October 25; Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) forms October 20, strongly supporting Bolsheviks

Late evening October 24 Lenin starts fom Bolshevik HQs in Smolny Institute directing the uprising

Overthrow of the PG a short, limited operation; Red Guards of the MRC storming the Winter Palace, seat of the PG, October 25

The convened Soviet Congress presented with the Bolshevik takeover

Most SR’s and Mensheviks walk out Rump Soviet approves a Bolshevik government, The Council

(Soviet) of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), led by Lenin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ_bkU6m9XQ (October Rev. Lenin)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL2ZblXOmhg (October Revolution “debunked”)

Bolshevik Dictatorship, Civil War, Consolidation Bolshevik power seizure split the socialists But the popular Decrees on Land and Peace, passed October 26,

helped gaining control of most provincial Soviets Immediate measures to destroy all “counter-revolutionary” forces;

December 1917, the Cheka Opposition hopes on Constituent Assembly, elected Nov.-Dec.:

SR 39.5%, Bolsheviks 22.5%, Kadets 4.5%, Mensheviks 3.2%; convened Jan. 5, next day dissolved by Sovnarkom

Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty Decree on Peace: call for just peace with no annexations or

indemnities; Lenin hoping for transforming the war into world revolution, but needing “breathing” space for Russian revolution

Talks with Germans in Brest-Litovsk start Nov. 16, but dragging on Germans resume hostilities, advancing to within 150 miles of

Petrograd; Lenin forcibly for acceptance of their terms Peace treaty signed March 1918: Russia losing 34% of population

(55 mil.), 34% of agr. land, 54% of industry, 89% of coalmines But Lenin vindicated within 6 months

Some Early Events Administrative changes:

February 1918, to Gregorian Calendar; March, moving the capital to MoscowMarch, 7th Party Congress, the RSDLP(b) to the Russian

Communist Party (Bolsheviks) July 1918, failed uprising of Left SR August 30, 1918, assassination attempt on Lenin;

Red Terror begins

Civil War Mid-May 1919, already civil war; involvement of Czechoslovak

Legions, June 1918 Execution of imperial family, 16-17 July 1918 Don River Cossacks; white Guards, Kornilov, Denikin; Siberia, Kolchak,

Anglo-French Intervention Red Army, organized and led by Trotsky: conscription, ex-tsarist

officers controlled by political commissars After initial White advances, Red Army (eventuall of 5 million) wins

1920-21 Soviet Power on all the territory of pre-war Russian Empire, except

Baltic countries (incl. Finland), parts of Poland and of new Romania

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih7FcT5mBRM(Czechoslovak Legions)

Tsar Nicolas II, Empress Alexandra,and their children

War Communism, Comintern Civil-war economy: draconian command system enforced by

state; private trade abolished; industries run by militarized labor; agricultural requisitioned by force from peasants; universal rationing replacing money

2-6 March 1919, 1st Congress of the Communist International Comintern); delegates from 34 parties in Europe and the US; to organize and lead proletarian revolution(s)

Revolutionary wave sweeps through post-war Europe; revolts and Soviets in Germany (Munich, Berlin) and Hungary (Budapest)

August 1920, Battle of Warsaw, Red Army defeated - decisive turn

The NEP, Consolidation Enormous costs of the civil-war victory; peasants turning against

Bolsheviks: slogans “Soviets without Bolsheviks!”, “Long live the Bolsheviks! Death to the Communists!”; workers striking across the country

March 1921; Kronstadt rebellion, its brutal suppression; 10th Party Congress secretly banning factions

Lenins decision: tactical retreat, consolidation; food requisioningsreplaced by a tax in kind

New Economic Policy (NEP): limited market economy Gradual restoration of a modicum of prosperity, but pre-war

levels of production achieved only in 1928 , 4 years after Lenin’s death, by Stalin

Succession Struggle, Stalin the Victor

Lenin’s Testament: Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bucharin, Trotsky, Stalin Lenin dies January 1924; Stalin, the General Secretary, deftly

out-maneuvering Trotsky Trotsky eventually expelled from the CC in October, and the

Party, in November 1927; in 1928 expelled from the Soviet Union Zinoviev and Kamenev initially supported Stalin against Trotsky,

but also purged By 1928 Stalin clear victor of succession

Lenin’ funeral January 1924

Dzherzhinsky funeral July 1926

End of NEP: Five Year Plan, Collectivizaation Bad harvest in 1927; Stalin’s response: return to methods of the Civil War – end of Lenin’s NEP Five Year Plan: an idustrilalization leap forward to Socialist Society of abundance; Socialism

in One Country Collectivization of agriculture: brutal-force means of class of Russian peasantry (120 mi.

people) into a system of collective farms; resistance brutally suppressed by mens of class struggle: destruction of the “kulaks” as a class

Horrific costs: 2 million kulaks deported into special settlements or labor camps; millions run from the coll. farms; Terror-Famine victims, some 8 million, especially in Ukraine (genocide)

Disastrous tempo to meet the fantastic targets of 5 Year Plan, in 1932 workers’ wages half of the 1928 level; country brought to brink of catastrophe; Stalin relentlessly pressing on

Party Congress January 1934: “Congress of Victors” Real term results: re-enslavement of peasantry (of more than 100 people)

impoverishment and loss of all rights of the working class

Great Purge/Terror At Congress of Victors Stalin hailed for completing Lenin’s Revolution; cult of his

personality But some 150 (secret) CC ballots against him; Stalin’s paranoia December 1934, Sergei Kirov assassinated; used by Stalin to unleash a purge of the Party

and government institutions Grown into the Great Purge/Terror of 1936-38 encompassing on a vast and bloody scale

all sections of Soviet society Of 139 CC members elected at Congress of Victors 102 shot, only 1/3 of Congress

delegates survived --- it was the Congress of Victims Purge in the Red Army: 3 marshals out of 5, 13 of 15 Army Commanders, 154 of 186

Division Comanders, altogether more than 25% Red Army officer corp; most spectacular victim: Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Deputy Commissar for Defense Red Army’s fighting capacity crippled , disastrous initial phase of the war in 1941

Leading members of intelligentsia (intellectuals, artists, writers) targeted an masse too Officials total number of victims: over 1.5 million, of which over 680,000 shot (average of

1,000 executions a day)

Show trials: August 1936, Zinoviev, Kamenev + 14 other Bolshevik leaders sentenced to death after confessing to unimaginable crimes;

January 1937, 17 former supporters of Trotsky sentenced to death March 1938, Bukharin, Yagoda + 12 other Bolsheviks sentenced to death after

confessing to conspire in “Trotsky-Zinoviev Center” to assassinate Soviet leaders, sabotage economy and spy for fascist states

Many foreign observers duped Were the unimaginable horrors of Collectivization and Great Purge inevitable? Beginning 1939 the Great Terror is over --- the Soviet Union back to is normal, less bloody

mode of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, exercised by the supreme Leader Stalin

stalin and Bukharin Stalin, Rykov, Zinoviev and Bukharin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-hx9CeQVo, (Stalin cult, purges)

World War II Rest of the World: Great Depression; rise of fascism; Spanish Civil War Policy of Appeasement toward Hitler: Munich Agreement of 1938 August 1939, Soviet-Nazi (Molotov-Ribbentrop) Non-agression Pact September 1, 1939, Hitler invades Poland --- WW II starts

September 17, 1939, Russia invades Eastern Poland November 30, 1939, Russia attacks Finland

March 1940, end of the Winter War; Finland losing 11% of its territory (30% of its economy) Summer 1940, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia invaded by Red Army,

annexed to the Soviet Union Soviet Russia now ruling over all the territory of Imperial Russia, except Western Poland and (most) Finland

September 1939 – May 1940, “Phony War” in the West June 1940, fall of France July – September 1940 , Battle of Britain, the Blitz

June 22, 1941, Germany attacks the Soviet Union Major German victories: Kiev captured Sep. 19, millions of Russian POWs taken by November 1941 Germans close to Moscow

Stalin remains in Moscow; Russian counter-offensive Great Patriotic War

August 1942 – February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad altogether 2.2 million personnel killed wounded or taken prisoner whole Geman 6th Army destroyed --- decisive turning point

Dec. 1943, Kiev liberated Oct. 1944, Red Army on the territory of Nazi Germany April 16, 1945, Battle of Berlin starts April 30 1945, Hitler commits suicide

Horrendous costs: over 26 million lives (incl. 7-15 million civilian; cf. 300,000 American, 400,000 British); material losses - incalcualble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgzrI1okwrQ (Fall of Berlin)

Cold War, DE-STALINIZATION Post-WW2 Soviet Empire: Soviet Union (encompassing territories of Imperial Russia sans Finland)

satellites Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania special case of “non-aligned” Yugoslavia

Break-up of the WW2 Alliance Cold War, bipolar world: two superpowers --- USA and USSR , balance of terror

Hopes that pre-war Stalinist policies would not continue dashed Purges and show trials in Eastern Europe

In Russia, 1.5 million of returning POWs sent to the Gulag (its population reaching 2.5 million) 1952-53, antisemitic campaign --- the Doctors’ Plot

March 5, 1952, Stalin dies Succession struggle won by N. KhruschevDec. 1953, Execution of L. Beria

Gradual de-Stalinization July 1953, Korean War armistice 1955, Soviet Army leaves Austria Gulag prisoners starting to be released

Nikita S. Khrushchev Lavrenti P. Beria (1894-1971) (1899-1953)

Feb. 1956, 20th Party Congress: Khrushchev denounces Stalin’s personality cult and crimes October 1956, Polish events

October-November 1956, Hungarian Uprising October 1961, 22nd Party Congress, Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization completed 1964, Khrushchev deposed

New Party leader Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982)

Under Brezhnev:

August 1968: “Prague Spring” crushed by military invasion Early 1970s, détente treaties negotiated with R. Nixon 1976, the Helsinki Accord 1980-81 Solidarity Movement in Poland By Brezhnev’s death in in 1983, Stagnation “Gerontocracy” interregnum 1983-1985

Gorbachev, Collapse of the Soviet Union 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev General Secretary of the Party

Glasnost, Perestroika Gates open to a process that the Party starts to lose control

Meetings, rallies, demonstrations --- atmosphere like 1917 1987, Boris Yeltsin resigns from the Politburo

Even Gorbachev moving from a Leninist position Collapse starts in outer reaches of the Soviet Empire

September 1989, non-Communist-led government in Poland Hungary opens its borders with Austria to fleeing East Germans November 17, the Velvet Revolution starts in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel Christmas Day 1989, N. Ceausescu and his wife executed in Romania

Ethnically non-Russian Soviet Republics start to demand sovereignty Gorbachev proposes a new union treaty for the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics Referendum of March 17, 1991 boycotted by Georgia, Armenia, Moldavia and 3 Baltic states August 1991, a draft treaty approved by remainig 9 republics

Mikhail Gorbachev(1931 -)

August 1991, Party hardliners attempt a coup , Committee of the State of Emergency Gorbachev under house arrest

Yeltsin, by then the president of the Russian Republic, organizes resistance in Moscow The coup collapses

Gorbachev return to Moscow, but his influence greatly reduced August 23, 1991, Yeltsin suspends the Communist Party

Gorbachev resigns shortly as General Secretary of the CP Dec. 1, Ukrainian referendum vote for a full independence

Leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Republics announce dissolution of the USSR December 31, 1991, the Soviet Union ceases to exist

Post-Communist Russia, Yeltsin, Putin Failure to reform a totalitarian state, as other pre-WW1 empires, the Soviet Union collapsed

The post-WW2 division of Europe peacefully over But in Russia, no successful replacement of elites, emergence of billionaire oligarchs

Yeltsin days marked by corruption, chaos, deprivation Unfulfilled hopes followed by disillusionment

December 31, 1999 Yeltsin resigns Successor Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin’s Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin (1952 -)

Russia ready for authoritarian leadership Putin’s goals: Russia to be a Great Power again

No return to Communist ideology or economy, but use of the Russian Orthodox Church, etc. In 2000-2008, commodity boom, Russian economy grows

Putin’s popularity grows too (now approval rating over 80%) Media under state control, opponents persecuted

Reliance on close circle of billionaire oligarchs Brutal crushing of secessionists in Chechnya

Efforts to secure the “Near Abroad” into a sphere of influence” Specter of NATO encirclement a rallying point

Georgia 2008 Ukraine 2014 – annexation of Crimea

Sanctions, rising tensions with the West Post-Cold-War period of harmonious East-West cooperation over for now

Orlando Figes, Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 (Metropolitan Books, New York, 2014)