Notes for the Russian Revolution



Notes for the Russian Revolution

Lenin’s 4 Points

July of 1917

1. immediate peace with the Central Powers

2. Redistribution of land to the peasants

“peace, land and bread” bourgeoisie

MEMO ON MARXISM

THE PLAYERS:

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Friedrich Engels (1820-1893)

THE IDEAS

HEGEL

Like most Judeo-Christian philosophers, Hegel had a linear view of history. He believed that history was progressing toward a particular end. And, of course, for 19th century people the very idea of "progress" is a good thing. The end Hegel had in mind was the Romantic notion of the unification of the Germans into a German state. Hegel shows his Enlightenment roots, however, in his "scientific" observation of society and history. His theory of the DIALECTIC is used to explain and predict the direction of history.

According to Hegel the pattern of change is predictable. Every state of affairs in society, the THESIS, has within it the seeds of its own destruction, the ANTITHESIS. The antithesis will grow within the thesis. There will be conflict. A new state of affairs, the SYNTHESIS will emerge as a result. But the synthesis will act as a new thesis, complete with the seeds of its overthrow, a new antithesis, growing within. The process of going from one state of affairs to conflict with its opposite, to resolution of that conflict in a new state of affairs is on going until the end of time. That is the DIALECTIC.

Thus, Hegel thought that if the Germans were disunited the very nature of disunity would produce the seeds of the idea of unity and would lead, eventually, but INEVITABLY, to a unified German nation.

For Hegel IDEAS COME BEFORE BEHAVIOR OR SOCIAL CONDITIONS.

MARX

Marx applied Hegel's ideas to history also, but he was looking at the economic relationships in society. He considered himself a SCIENTIFIC SOCIALIST because he was not merely imagining or romanticizing a perfect society the way the UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS did. He was looking at society and applying objective scientific rules to what he saw. He concluded that COMMUNISM was the inevitable outcome of the class struggle he observed in his times.

For Marx the progress of history is based on economics. Each economic system is made up of classes. Each class develops its own ideas to support its own position.

For Marx SOCIAL CONDITIONS CAUSE BEHAVIOR AND BEHAVIOR CAUSES IDEAS. For Marx, economics is the decisive human social condition. That means a person's social/economic class determines a person's lifestyle and a person's lifestyle determines a person's ideas.

How does it work? Within feudalism, the thesis, are the seeds of its own destruction, capitalism. (In capitalism Marx includes all the little sub-types of economic "isms" that we have discussed before - market economy, bullionism, mercantilism and so on.) In the conflict between the classes (feudal landlords versus capitalistic merchants and traders) inevitably the capitalists will win. But within capitalism will develop an antithesis - the disgruntled workers - who will be the cause of the system's downfall.

Because Marx's system is DETERMINISTIC (the end is already decided, sort of like PREDESTINATION) it is silly for workers to do anything to try to change the outcome. Workers should not pursue activities like unionizing, or working for universal suffrage because that will only delay the inevitable arrival of COMMUNISM. Marx called the efforts of workers to improve their condition within the capitalist system OPPORTUNISM.

MARXISM is also opposed to NATIONALISM and RELIGION because they tend to bring the lower classes together with the upper classes based on false premises. They distract the lower classes from their true purpose, the overthrow of the oppressive BOURGEOIS (ownership) class. The true basis for alliance between peoples is not nation or belief, but economic class. Furthermore, religion tends to teach people to accept their current (oppressed) state and to look for relief in the afterlife. That is what Marx meant when he said that "RELIGION IS THE OPIATE OF THE PEOPLE."

For Marx the end is reached when the workers, PROLETARIAT, overthrow the owners and bring capitalism to an end. Then COMMUNISM will be achieved. Why won't there be another antithesis growing within communism? Because ideas come from conditions and conditions will be perfect. There will not be any government to oppress people because the people will own everything communally (That's why they call it "Communism," see?) Existing government institutions will dissolve in the "WITHERING AWAY OF THE STATE," because they will have no purpose. What will result is the DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT in which everyone will be bossed around by the proletariat, but since everyone will BE the proletariat (that is what is meant by a "classless society,") everyone will be, in effect, bossing him/herself. If you think it sounds a lot like Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU'S idea of the GENERAL WILL, you are right.

1. Grievances for in Russia in 1917

|Intelligentsia |Landowners |Peasants |Bourgeoisie |Kulaks |Nobles |Urban |

| | | | | | |Proletariat |

|1. silenced or exiled;|1.Loss of serfs and |1. land and food hunger|1. Workers complain |1. Richer than |1.Tsar has too much |1. Hungry |

|have freedom of speech|cheap labor; |b/c exporting food to |to much and go on |peasants but unable |power; gain legal |2. bad working |

|2. no access to |reintroduce serfdom |improve the balance of |strike; make unions |to grow as much |power |conditions; create |

|influence the |or compensate |payments in Russia |and strikes illegal |business wise b/c |2. Not enough money |unions and go on |

|government or reform |landowners |2. freedom hunger; |2. taxes are too |restricted by class |from peasant fees; |strike |

|it; refuse to pay |financially |Redistribute land and |high; lower taxes |inferiority and land |raise the fees |3. bad hours |

|taxes, advocate for |2. Want more land; |end redemption fees |3. imports are too |titles; change land |3. taxes are too |4. food prices are |

|legislative |Give them more land |give them |high price; lower |ownership laws |high; lower taxes |rising; give them |

|institution in which |3. taxes are too |representation |tariffs. |2.forced to modernize| |government food |

|they have power |high; lower taxes |3. Taxes are too high |4. no power in govt; |and share facilities;| |5. live very close |

|3. aristocracy is |4. |4. still paying off |get representation |stop this | |to one another in |

|backward; dethrone the| |redemption on land; | |3. nothing to trade | |dilapidated housing;|

|Tsar overthrow the | |5. No real private | |for their food; open | |improve housing |

|aristocrats | |ownership | |up international | |create public |

|4. female teachers | |6. Mir isn’t fun | |trade | |housing |

|were fired when | |7. War Communism takes | | | |6. no way to make |

|married; increase | |their food with no | | | |changes |

|women’s equality | |compensation; pay for | | | |7. don’t know how to|

| | |the goods end | | | |read; build schools |

| | |redemption fees | | | |8. |

| | |8. sick and poor from | | | | |

| | |the WWI; end WWI | | | | |

|All are unhappy with | | |Make money off the | | | |

|the progress of the | | |war | | | |

|war | | | | | | |

|What would you have |Kill them; lower |Kill them; redistribute|Ignore them b/c they |Jump start the |Give them a |Build schools |

|done? Killed them, |taxes but take some |the land; take some of |are profiting; maybe |economy to increase |parliament; dissolve |improve working |

|created a new |of their land |the landowners and |even raise their |consumer purchasing |it if they disagree |conditions |

|government; give them |compromise |aristocrats and give |taxes |power; increase |with you; have an | |

|the Duma so they feel | |too peasants; | |education; print lots|advisory committee; | |

|important but don’t | |progressive income tax | |more money |kill them | |

|enforce their laws | |(based on how much | | | | |

| | |people make); create | | | | |

| | |fun social sit. YMCA | | | | |

2. Create a side by side comparison of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks (socialists are outnumbered by these)

|Bolsheviks (translates to majority) |Mensheviks (translates to minority) |

|Lenin architect with surprise votes, Jewish Bond’s boycott |Minority 1903 |

|Majority, usually had minority |usually had majority |

|‘Hards’ |‘soft’ |

|believe revolution must be led by small revolutionary elite with a hard core of|open party to those who are unhappy with status quo in Russia |

|reliable zealous workers |recommend cooperation with liberals, progressives, bourgeoisie, democrats |

|strongly centralized |bridge diff intellectual ideologies together |

|ostracized those who disagreed |similar to Marxists in Europe |

|dictatorship of the proletariat would be the ends with anything as the means |believed Russia had to go through capitalism before they went into |

|dialectical materialism |communism |

|believed in irreconcilable class struggle | |

|want to abolish private property and skip capitalism to get to communism | |

|Which would you have joined? Which would you predict would be successful pre 1917? | |

3. Create a side by side comparison of 1905 and 1917 in Russia

| |1905 |1917 |

|Where |St Petersburg |Petrograd (Petersburg sounded too German) |

|Who |Father Gapon/ CADETS |Intelligentsia émigrés in two factions: social revolutionaries, |

| | |constitutional democrats, and Kerensky, |

| | | |

| | |Bolsheviks led by Lenin |

|Classes? |Peasants and Land Hunger/ Factory Worker |Peasants land hunger/ factory workers |

|Causes |-spontaneous outburst of disillusionment, frustration, desperation; |Trigger: huge food riots, WWI; Protempkin sailors’ mutiny |

| |Russo Japanese War; | |

|Sequence? |1. Bloody Sunday |1. Provisional Government; Lvov, Kerensky |

| |2. October Manifesto |2. Decision to stay in WWI |

| |3. Duma (but gets dissolved) |3. Bolsheviks take over |

| |4. Stolypin’s Reforms |4. Out of WWI |

| | |5. NEP? (Cheka) |

| | |5. Civil War until 21/22 |

| | |6. Stalin maneuvers into Party General |

1861-1906 emancipation, paid redemption fees on land

4. Compare, or judge how Marxist Lenin truly was:

M= Marxist NM= Not Marxist

Lenin’s actions/policies:

1. NM: Made/instigated and forced the revolution

2. NM Skiped capitalism or provided an abbreviated kind aka NEP

3. NM Redistributed land and bread to the peasant, basically give them property

4. M Workers run factories with committees and collective authority

5. NM Small, elite group of leaders with top down policies

6. NM War Communism, stealing?

7. M Treaty of Brest-Litosvk b/c it eliminated the excess land of the Russian Empire

8. M No official religion, the Holy Synod was eliminated

9. NM Cult of the Supreme Agitator, embalming the body, see article on website

10. NM Anti-union

Civil War and Lenin’s Policies

1917

-Under Nicholas II modernizing, but also very anti-semitic

-Czarina was in charge of gov’t and she and Rasputin are bizarre and discredit the Czar.

-2 million Russians dead, tsarist gov’t rejects civilian aid, suspend the Duma again,

-Nov 1916 Duma get’s together, denounces the gov’t’s policies

-Dec 1916 Rasputin assassinated, Tsar Nicholas gives police machine guns

-“It is when moderate persons, normally concerned with their own business, come to such a conclusion [that it was a situation that could only be saved by force] that revolution becomes political possibilty”

-March 8 1917 urban proletariat rises up in Petrograd food riots, intelligentsia takes it into a poltical insurrection

-2 authorities in the city: Duma committee moderate, constitutionalist, relatively legal and the other Petrograd Soviet (workers’ council= Paris Commune 1792) rev forces from below and constantly pushed to the left

- Duma Committee: Provisional Gov’t Prince Lvov, Kerensky, demand abdication of Nichoals II

Kerensky armed Bolshevik opposition, kept Russia in WWI, believed in Great Russian

chauvinism

Bolshevik Phase

-Provisional Gov’t and the Constitutional Democarts or CADETS, continues to push the war while the Petrograd Soviet disagrees

-As the Provisional and the Constitutional Assembly try to create a new government, the workers

and soldiers continue to form soviets

-Kerensky keeps Russia in WWI; willing to compromise with bourgoursies

-successful b/c for a time protected civil liberties, freed political prisoners, and try to bring

democracy to Russia

How was power abused by the Czar, misused by Kerensky, and abused by Lenin?

-secret police, expulsion of oppostition, Cheka/KGB

Soviets

-original: Petrograd Soviet was a council of workers, soldiers and intellectuals who shared power with Provisional

-Lenin and Trotsky gained power from this Soviet

-Army collapses because authority is too spread out

-Trotskey gains control of the Army through the special committee for military and revolutionary matters

Lenin’s 4 points

1. immediate peace with Central Powers

2. redistribute land to the peasants

3.Transfer factories, mines, and industrial plants from capitalists to committees of workers in each plant

4. Recognize the soviets as the supreme power instead of the Provisional Govt.

“peace land and bread”

-November 1917

-Bolsheviks, led by Lenin Trotskey, Stalin, call an all Russian soviet congress

-They had control over the army thanks to Trostkey

-take over telephones, rail stations, and electric power

-Council of People’s Commissioners

-Kerensky flees

Civil War

- Red Army (Bolshevik) vs White Army (Hodgepodge of everyone) supported by Allies

- lost 80% of GDP

Lenin’s 21 points

New Economic Policies

Communist Party Organization

STALIN

Imitates Czarist Regime:

-Secret police, expulsion of people to Siberia, enforces his will through the purges, trials similar to Czarist

Russification program

5 Year Plans

-1928-1938 increase in heavy industry production 4xs

-no consumer production therefore decrease in standard of living and famine

-liquidate the Kulaks (owned 24 or more acres of land)

Purges

-Robspierre

-Turns on left and then the right

-Kills all the Generals; no military power by 1940 WWII

USSR

Vladimir Lenin

1870 -1924

Led the German supported Bolshevik Revolution against Russia's Constituent Assembly

by Rit Nosotro ( [pic]Last updated: 03/14/2006 23:59:53 )

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|No matter how insignificant they seem, every person who has set foot on this earth has made some impact on the course history. Judas betrayed Jesus. |

|In every generation there exist a small number of individuals who not only set the world climate during their lifetimes but also irrevocably and |

|irrefutably change the way people view the past, the present, and the future. Did Lenin betray the Russian people? |

|Vladimir Lenin was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov on April 10, 1870 to a fairly average Russian family who lived in the costal town of Simbirsk. Most of|

|Simbirsk’s citizens lived their lives constantly “[struggling] . . . to make enough money to survive” as farmers or fisherman. However, unlike most |

|of their neighbors, the Ulyanov’s had strong educational backgrounds. Lenin’s father worked for the Russian government as an inspector of public |

|schools. And both his father and his mother placed high value on intellectual pursuits and urged their six surviving children to do the same. The |

|children displayed above average intelligence and aptitude for learning, and perhaps partly because of this they received constant pressure to excel.|

|Even in an academically gifted family, Vladimir stood above the rest. In school he received unusually high marks and displayed a personal drive |

|separate from the exhortation of his parents. |

|The education that Vladimir Lenin received as a child affected the rest of his life. During that time, the Russian government pressured schools to |

|place a high emphasis on “classical” education. “The Ministry of Popular Enlightenment saw Classics as purveying the ideals of belief, truth, |

|endurance and courage.” As a result, young Russian children learned years of Latin and Greek and spent time translating the classic scholars. |

|Ironically, they read hardly any of their own country’s literature. Government officials believed that most of the known Russian authors expressed |

|too many revolutionary tendencies and did not want to introduce that to the minds of the citizens. This classical influence remained with Lenin |

|throughout his life; as an adult he constantly quoted the ancient authors in his papers and books. |

|Both his father and his older brother died while Lenin was still relatively young. His father died of natural causes and his brother, Aleksandr, was |

|executed for his participation in an assassination attempt against Emperor Alexander III. During this time, Vladimir Lenin grew more rebellious as he|

|began to delve further into revolutionary literature while attending university. |

|After graduating he found work as a law assistant but soon took up company with a group of Marxist revolutionaries. As time progressed he became |

|influential among the group and participated in many labor strikes. In 1895 the government exiled Lenin to a village in Siberia. During his three |

|years there he increased his involvement with the Marxist cause, wrote vast amounts of literature, and married Nadezhda Krupskaya. |

|1903 saw the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. As would prove true of all his political opinions, Lenin argued for the |

|existence of a smaller, more exclusive movement made up of only the most radical people. For some time, two parties co-existed within the Marxist |

|movement: the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. Even while living in Europe for over a decade, Lenin organized and led the radical Bolshevik party from |

|its early beginnings to its split from the Mensheviks in 1912 and on to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The Menshevik party wanted to pursue a less|

|radical approach and try to work with the more moderate parties that already existed. “Lenin . . . [demanded] no less than the complete overthrow of |

|the monarchy.” |

|As World War I continued to rage, Russia also faced a civil war among its own citizens. Immediately after Nicholas II's abdicated power in 1917, a |

|Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky called for free elections and had the support of the allied nations of WWI. To counter this action, |

|Germany sent Lenin back to Russia with the finances to to overthrow Kerensky. As pay back for German help in eliminating the Constituent Assembly in |

|the Winter Palace and other anti-Bolshevik forces, Lenin betrayed millions by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which allowed Germany to move 17 |

|divisions from the eastern front to the western front. During this process of consolidating power, the White Russians rebelled against the Bolsheviks|

|(Red Russians) and insisted that the war would only end if Russia “[rejoined] the Allied cause.” In 1918 Lenin survived an assassination attempt from|

|the White Russians. However, this only strengthened his following with the people because his recovery made him appear even more invincible in their |

|eyes. To increase Russia's distaste for war, Lenin began stealing from the farmers in order to support the wage of war. Unfortunately, these farmers |

|and other unsatisfied Russians began to create more disturbances that “[threatened] the stability of the Society government.” |

|In the early 1920s, Lenin experienced a series of health crises and began to take measures to secure the future of the government. He desired that a |

|“collective rule” be established in order to avoid “complex bureaucracy” and dictatorship. Although Lenin warned the party about Joseph Stalin, who |

|advocated for centralized power, it was Stalin that took over after Lenin died of a stoke in 1924. |

|Obviously Lenin made a huge impact on society during his lifetime. However, the concepts and ideas that he nurtured in his countrymen led to an iron |

|grip that eventually controlled not only Russia but Eastern Europe and Central Asia as well and lasted for over fifty years. His radicalism caused |

|him to split from the “moderate” revolutionary groups and in turn bred an even more extreme radicalism and cruelty that resulted in the death of |

|millions of people at the hand of Stalin and the members of his government. Although the USSR destroyed nearly 70,000 churches, Christians can have |

|faith in God’s eternal kingdom as the only kingdom that will never pass away. |

|Philippians 2: 3-4 says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit . . . each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also |

|to the interests of others.” Although this sounds like pure communism, it can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. Lenin denied|

|the power of God and the USSR eventually crumbled. God "increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them |

|again" (Job 12:23). It is telling that the Russian Communist Party which Germany promoted during Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, would come to |

|occupy Germany in WWII. "He who digs a pit will fall into it" (Proverbs 26:27). The WWI gold that Germany sent with Lenin bought the shovel that |

|buried Germany in WWII at the cost of around 20 million Russian lives. Betrayed? Yes. |

|[pic] |

|Sources: |

|Robert Service. Lenin. Great Britain: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 2000 |

|“Lenin, Vladimir Ilich.” Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2002. 1993-2001. |

|"Vladimir Lenin" |

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