Russian Civil WarBackground, Timeline, Communism

1917 The Czar is Overthrown

• July 11 (July 24 NS) - Alexander Kerensky becomes Prime Minister of the Provisional Government

• October 25 (November 7 NS) - The October Revolution - the Bolsheviks take over Petrograd (also called the November Revolution if following the Gregorian calendar)

• October 26 (November 8 NS) TheWinter Palace, the last holdout of the Provisional Government, is taken by the Bolsheviks; the Council of People's Commissars (abbreviated as Sovnarkom), led by Lenin, is now in control of Russia

1918 Russian Civil War• March 3 – The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,

between Germany and Russia, is signed and takes Russia out of World War I

• March 8 - The Bolshevik Party changes its name to the Communist Party

• June - Russian civil war begins• Red Army Vs. White Army

• July 17 - Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed

Communist Government

• After the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, overthrow the provisional government• Set up a dictatorship, with secret police

• Lenin is in charge• Revised economic policy – prosperity for some

peasants (sold crops & paid taxes)• Right-hand man: Leon Trotsky

• Military leader, led Stalin’s Red Army in many uprisings & revolutionary battles, including the defeat of the “White” army (the nobility) in the Civil War

Civil War, 1917-1918• Civil war erupts between

• Reds • (Bolsheviks)

• Whites • (anti-Bolsheviks)

• primarily displaced nobility and foreign interests

• War ends in 1918

5 Year Plans

The Situation• Stalin took over a country in

which:• Almost all industry was in a few

cities• Workers were unskilled &

uneducated• Many regions as backward as they

were 100 years before

Industry & the Five-Year Plans

GOSPLAN set overall target for an industry

Each region was told its target

Region set target for each mine, factory, etc.

Manager of site set target for each foreman

Foremen set target for shifts, each worker

• Created 5-Year Plans to modernize (R)– Plans created by GOSPLAN (State

planning org set up by L in 1921– Set ambitious production targets

in vital industries (coal, iron, oil, electricity)

– Detailed, down to the individual worker

First Five-Year Plan (1928-1933)

• Focused on major industries• Targets not met, but still

impressive• Created industrial foundation for

further 5-Year plans• Whole cities built in remote areas

where resources were• Workers moved into new cities to

work• New steel mills, dams, & hydro-

electric power fed industry/energy requirements

• New industries in previously undeveloped regions (Uzbekistan & Kazakhstan)

Second Five-Year Plan (1933-1937)

• Built on achievements of 1st 5-Years• Heavy industry still priority

• Other industries developed– Lead, tin, zinc mines in Siberia– Transport & communication– Railways & canals– Moscow underground railway

(spectacular!)• In agriculture production of tractors &

other farm machinery increased dramatically• Third Five-Year Plan launched in 1938– Some factories were to switch

consumer goods (radios, refrigerators, cars, etc.)

– WWII interrupted this plan – Communist (R) would never

produce large #s of consumer goods

Were the Five-Year Plans A Success?

• Criticisms• A lot of inefficiency• Duplication of effort & waste• Enormous human cost (you’ll see!)

• Positives– 2nd & 3rd 5-Y Plans learned from

errors in 1st 5-Y Plan– By 1937 USSR was a modern

industrialized state– Without this modernizations

Germany would have easily overrun Russia in 1941!

Were the Five-Year Plans A Success?

1913 1928 1940Gas (billion m3)

0.02 0.3 3.4

Fertilizers (million tons)

0.07 .1 3.2

Plastic (million tons)

- - 10.9

Tractors (thousands)

- 1.3 31.6

Were the Five-Year Plans A Success?Production in

1927-28Five-Year Plan

1933Five-Year Plan

1937Electricity (billion Kw hours)

Coal (million tons)

Oil (million tons)

Pig Iron (million tons)

Steel (million tons)

5.05Actual13.4

Actual36.2

Target17.0

Target38.0

35.4Actual64.3

Actual128.0

Target68.0

Target152.5

11.7Actual21.4

Actual28.5

Target19.0

Target46.8

3.3Actual6.2

Actual14.5

Target8.0

Target16.0

4.0Actual5.9

Actual17.7

Target8.3

Target17.0

• From 1930 gov’t drafted women workers– 1000s of day-care facilities set up– By 1937 women 40% of industrial

workers– Between 1932-37 80% of new

workers were women

• Most famous worker: Alexei Stakhanov– Mined 102 tons/coal in one shift (14x

avg!)– Became ‘Hero of Socialist Labor’– Propaganda told workers to be ‘Stakhanovites’

How Was Industrialization Achieved?• All extreme programs have costs:

• The workers paid the price• Foreign experts & engineers marveled

@ (R) workers for their toughness• Workers bombarded w/ propaganda

(posters, slogans, radio broadcasts, etc)

• All had strict targets to meet (fined if missed)

Cover of Time magazine Dec 16, 1935

Workers: The Good

• By late 1930 many workers’ lives better• Some had well-paid skilled jobs• Some earned bonuses for meeting targets• Unemployment almost nonexistent• By 1940 USSR had more doctors than (E)• Education free for all• Training programs in colleges & work places

Workers: The Bad

• On other hand, life was harsh under S• Factory discipline harsh, punishment

severe• Lateness, absences punished by sacking• Sacking meant losing apartment/home• Internal passports/Checka prevented free

movement of workers within USSR

Workers: The Ugly

• Prison labor used for Massive projects• Dams & canals built by soviet

citizens imprisoned for being political opponents, suspected political opponents, kulaks, Jews, workers who had accidents or made mistakes on the job (charged w/ sabotage)

• Estimated 100,000 died on Belomor Canal

Industrialization Comes at a Cost

• Few comforts:• Almost no consumer goods• Severe overcrowding in

apartments• Families of ten typically had two

rooms• Wages actually fell between 1928

& 1937• In 1932 a husband & wife working

made what just one worker made in 1928

Farmers Revolt

Modernizing Agriculture: Collectivization

• Fact File:• Peasants were to put their lands

together to form large joint farms (kolkhoz) but keep small plots for personal use

• Animals & tools to be pooled together

• Motor Tractor Stations (MTS), provided by gov’t, made tractors available

• 90% of kolkhoz produce to be sold to state

• 10% kolkhoz produce kept to feed peasants

Modernizing Agriculture: Collectivization

– Most peasants either laborers w/o land or rich kulaks

– Farms too small to afford/make use of tractors, fertilizers, economies of scale

– Most peasants were content to grow enough food for themselves, not enough to feed all citizens of USSR

• 1929: Stalin announces collectivization

Farmers Revolt

• Kulaks resisted• Simply refused to hand over their

land & produce• Soviet propaganda tried to turn

Russians against Kulaks• Requisition parties took all

food>starvation• 1000s arrested & sent to labor

camps where they were worked to death (Ivan Denisovich)

• Kulaks retaliated by burning crops & slaughtering all their animals (If we can’t have it, nobody can!)

Farmers Revolt

• 1932-33: Food production fell• Millions starved in Ukraine (best

farm land in USSR!)• Despite famine Stalin did not ease

off. By 1934 there were no more kulaks. By 1941 almost all farm land was collectivized. S had achieved his aim of collectivization.