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The Bolshevik Revolution
Key Players: Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky & the Soviets
Unlike the March Revolution the Bolshevik Revolution was an extremely planned affair. The Bolsheviks gained control of Petrograd on October 13. They also took Moscow on October 23 at the same time Lenin returned. The Bolsheviks arrested the Provisional Government and seized power with assistance from Trotsky and the Soviets on November 7th. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Key Players: Vladimir Lenin
Lenin, against everyone's opposition, opened peace negotions with Germany. He was willing to give up huge parcels of land in exchange for peace. Thus the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was created. -
War Communism
Key Players: Lenin
The state appropirated the mining, metallurgical, textile, elecrical, timber, tobacco, resin, glass, pottery industries as well as many others. Compulsory labour was introduced. Private trade was suppressed to be replace with rationing and government distribution of food and other necessities of life. At the beginning of the summer the country entered a major and curel Cival war. -
Civil War
Key Players: Reds & Whites
In the Civil War the Bolsheviks quickly became known as the Reds while other groups opposed were the Whites. (Whites: tsarist army officers, cossacks, bourgeoisie, outlawed political groups). Bolshevik controlled areas and huge reprisals against opponents were common. In the oulying areas the whites controlled countryside.
Middleclass and upperclass were White. The lower class were Red. The peasants were non-committal but in the end they had their land. -
New Government
Key Players: Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky & Joseph Stalin
Lenin's government initiatives: the war should be ended immediately and the peasants should seize the land. Lenin led the country on the strength of his personality. The Soviets established a new government under the Council of the People's Commissars (all the Bolshevik who granted themselves a supreme power). -
New Economic Policy
Key Players: Lenin
1. Some Private trade was permitted.
2. Peasants were allowed to sell surplus. They were going to benefit the most from the NEP.
3. Workers in small factories, under twenty-five employees, were permitted to "purchase" their factory under a co-operative arrangement and therby return it to a from of private ownership. -
Treaty of Rapallo
The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement signed on April 16, 1922 between Germany and Russia under which each renounced all territorial and financial claims against the other following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and World War I. USSR and Germany agreed that USSR would manufacture illegal war material for Germany forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. In return the USSR would recieve steel manufacturing from Germany. -
Five Year Plans
The Five Year Plans was for the development of the national economy on the Soviet Union and a radical attempt to bring them into the industrial age. The first two plans concentrated on improving heavy industry including coal, oil, steel and electricity and met its goals in the oil industry. Many of the workers were slave workers and kulaks from the gulag. Strikers were shoThe enormous cost of human suffering was justified by Stalin as a necessity if the USSR was not to be crushed by her enemies. -
The Kellogg-Briand Pact
The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war signed on August 27, 1928. Also known as the Pact of Paris for the city in which it was signed, the pact was one of many international efforts to prevent another World War and denounced that was was only a method of solving disputes, but it had little effect in stopping the rising militarism of the 1930s or preventing World War II. This was supported by USA and declaration of policy by five nations including Germany, USA, and USSR. -
Normalization/ Rapprochement
USSR began to participate in any affairs possible to encourage collective security in the West, signed in the Kellogg-Briand pact also known as Pact of Paris. Joined the League of Nations in 1934 and signed a number of pacts with European countries. -
The Purges
From the Russian point of view the greatest mistake Stalin made Was to carry into the Red Army during the purge. Stalin executed one fifth of officers in the army which would come back to haunt him in a few years when was broke out again. "Show trials" developed which were known as when enemies of the state got on the stand and "confessed" their parts against the state and/or Stalin. -
League of Nations
In 1934 the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations and also signed a number of treaties with other European countries. As well as non aggressive pacts with Czechoslovakia and Rumania. -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
An agreeement of strict neutrality between Germany and the USSR was signed. Nazis and Soviets did not like each other still. Hitler got a one front war with the West and Stalin got time to prepare. The secret part of the agreement was the division of Poland.
