Translation of the Revolution

…into the reality of governing

The Players• Leon Trotsky• 1870 – 1940• Developed, with Lenin,

Marist ideas• Organized the October

Revolution leading to Bolshevik rule

• Organized the Red Army against the Whites

• Tried to keep Stalin out• Exiled 1929, murdered

by Stalin, 1940

The Players• Vladimir Lenin• 1870 – 1924• Leader of the Bolsheviks• Organized Russia during

the Civil War, implemented War Communism

• After the Civil War, brought in the New Economic Policy

• After injury during assassination attempt 1921, poor health

• Anti-Stalin

The Players• Joseph Stalin• 1879-1953• 1922-Made General

Secretary of the Community party which allowed him to appoint people that would eventually put him power

• Socialism in one country• Five Year Plans, The

Great Terror, helped defeat Hitler, ruled for 25 years

Under Lenin – 1917-1921

War Communism• Lost a great deal of territory to

Germany /Civil War rages• Abolition of private property• Collective farms• Factories under control of

worker’s committees• Banks and industry nationalized• Private accounts seized• Foreign trade through the state

only• Opposition groups illegal

Reaction of Population/Impact

• Peasants thought they would own the land, not hold it collectively

• Created black market when forced to hand over produce

• Reduced work, yield dropped

• Death by starvation, disease, war (7.5 million)

Under Lenin – 1921

New Economic Policy• After Kronstadt naval base

rebellion• Changed needed to

rejuvenate the economy• Need consumer goods• NEP – temporary measure• Reintroduce elements of

private enterprise in small industry and retail

• Peasants can keep surplus

Impacts of NEP• Economic recovery by

1928• Threat to communism• Increase in “Nepmen”

or small business people

• Increase in kulaks or prosperous peasants in villages

Also under Lenin

• Treaty of Rapallo (USSR and Germany)– Germany would receive

illegal war material– Russia would get steel

manufacturing technology from Germany

• Bolshevik Party became Communist Party

• Russia became USSR

Questions and a Power Struggle

• Still behind in terms of industrial revolution

• Heavy industry or consumer goods

• Guns or butter?• With Lenin dead,

Trotsky and Stalin engage in a power struggle

Stalin wins the struggle

• Offers Socialism in one country

• Serious challenger, Trotsky, was exiled

• By 1930, no serious opposition to Stalin remains

• Trotsky assassinated, 1940

• Video: Assassination or Trotsky: http://vimeo.com/47842996

• Trotsky’s Grandson: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/aug/20/trotsky-assassination-remembered-grandson-video\

Stalin’s Economic Plans• First Five Year Plan – – Command Economy – production, distribution and

consumption all controlled by central state– Individual economic activity suppressed– Collectivization – all land pooled, and a committee would tell

them what to do– Ruthless elimination of the Kulaks as a class – exiled to the

Gulags, killed– Heavy industry “We must do in 10 years what you have done in

150.”– Cheka and OGPU – secret police force to shut down opposition

Second 5 Year Plan – 1933-1937

• Too harsh and had to be downscaled

• Thus began the Purges as Stalin killed off any opposition to his plans

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJw88VehAlg

Read p. 77 IndustrializationStalin’s Industrialization Plans

Plus Minus Interesting