History 104 Europe from Napoleon to the PRESENT 11 March 2009 From the Bolshevik Revolution to Stalinism Magnitogorsk Chelyabinsk Oblast Russia Background The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in October 1917 Their success was facilitated by widespread popular dissatisfaction with the war Lenin s theory of a revolutionary vanguard which made it possible to imagine the Communist Revolution happening even when most people were still peasants the particular conditions produced by Russia s rapid industrialization in the period 1880 1914 enormous factories clustered in a few locations postage stamp depicting Marx Engels Lenin Stalin Soviet Union 1954 1917 popular support for the soviets and Bolsheviks 1930s forced collectivization 200 000 deaths 3 000 000 15 000 000 people held in GULAG prisons What was the relation of 1930s Stalinism to the first years of the Russian Revolution Was the Soviet Union a communist country in this era Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies worker at Magnitogorsk 1931 class war high modernist utopianism reversion to autocracy of imperial Russia creation of a new ruling class Bolshevik Revolution to Stalinism lecture structure statue of Alexander III being demolished in 1918 Moscow Russian Revolution TWO revolutions in 1917 alone February Revolution Nicholas II abdicates Provisional Government and Petrograd Workers Soviet Soviet passes Order Number One on organization of military October Revolution 1918 1922 Civil War All workers are brothers Putilov Factory Petrograd 1917 Jan 1924 Lenin dies Members of the 1917 Communist Politburo Lenin Kamenev Zinoviev Bukharin d 1924 d 1936 d 1936 d 1938 Sokolnikov d 1939 Trotsky d 1940 Stalin d 1953 From Lenin to Stalin How many Russian Revolutions were there Russian Civil War 1917 1922 Red Army over 5 000 000 men mainly peasant draftees 50 000 officers from former Imperial Army White Armies many distinct armies supported by Britain USA Japan Only the close cooperation of worker and peasant will save Russia from desperation and hunger Civil War poster American British Canadian troops Denekin s Army fall 1919 War Civil War farthest advance of Admiral Kolchak s White Army summer 1919 Great Siberian Ice March Jan March 1920 retreat of White Army led by Vladimir Kappel Japanese and US troops Civil War and the Polarization of Society fundamental aims abolish all exploitation of man by man the complete elimination of the division of society into classes the ruthless suppression of exploiters the establishment of a socialist organisation of society and the victory of socialism in all countries Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic July 1918 It s us or them who are you with Dmitry Moor 1920 From a small group of partisans to a mighty Red Army civil war and class war Peasants into Communists If you read books you won t forget your grammar She is reading John Reed Ten Days that Shook the World 1919 To have more we must produce more To produce more we must know more civil war and class war Collectivization De kulakization and Forced Resettlement kulak high income farmers literally meaning tight fisted Identifying features of a kulak USSR Council of Ministers 1929 using hired labor owning a mill a creamery or other complex equipment renting equipment or facilities barns etc involvement in commerce money lending or other non labor activity My aunt grabbed a pitchfork and shouted I won t let you near the horses She had two horses And the next day they came and they dekulakized her took her things and sent her away to exile The children died anonymous woman from southern Russia quoted in Catherine Merridale Night of Stone Death and Memory in Russia 2000 kolkhoz collective farmers marching with banner that reads we will liquidate the kulaks as a class from civil war to class war but against which class My successes in production work don t make me happy A thought I can never shake off is the question one of my psychology Can it be that I really am different from the others No matter how much you feed the wolf he still looks to the forest It s the same with me No matter how much I try to re educate myself I simply can t get rid of the habits of a useless person It s true that they are small not even noticeable to an outsider but to me when I observe myself everything is noticeable Stepan Podlubny diary entry March 1932 son of kulaks in the Ukraine quoted in Jochen Hellbeck Revolution on my Mind Writing a Diary under Stalin 2006 We will keep out the kulaks 1930 class war and war within individuals Revolutionary enthusiasm and making of a new world Hindu and Korean Englishman Persian Frenchman Chinese Turk and all the rest they all spoke and spoke of imperialism which carried away by its greed has dug its own grave and now is drowning in the blood of nations In this unanimous funeral dirge for the past the real meaning was the joyous announcing of the future summoning the nations to aid resurgent revolutionary Russia In every speech there was confidence that Russia who by the will of history is taking it on herself to be the vanguard of Socialism will play her great and difficult part with honor and with success It was wonderful to listen to these many tongued speeches full of a single feeling and to know that the rationally directed will of the people is capable of working miracles The attention of the whole world is intent on the Russian worker socialist He appears before the peoples of the Earth as the creator of new forms of life By the will of history he is teacher and example to millions of men Maxim Gorky Soviet Russia and the Nations of the World 1919 Gustav Klutsis photo montage poster Long live world October The revolutionary vanguard and modernist utopianism Women s Rights and Gender Roles in the early Soviet Union Women s strike on International Women s Day begins February Revolution 1917 universal suffrage proclaimed includes women United Kingdom 1928 Spain 1931 France 1945 Italy 1946 Greece 1952 Switzerland 1971 federal 1990 all cantons 1918 1922 laws mandated equal pay for equal work no stigma attached to unwed mothers divorce on demand Worker and peasant women all should go to the polls Gather under the Red Banner with men Bring fear to the bourgeoisie N Valerianov 1925 The revolutionary vanguard and modernist utopianism making the new woman Self Righteousness and Bolshevik Puritanism I was very happy The Bolsheviks planned their economy and had moved from the fetishization