Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
insurrection to coincide with the forthcoming Second Congress of Soviets.
Lenin's analysis proved correct, as the Provisional Government fell without
much resistance.
The October Revolution that followed turned out to be a turning point in the
modern history of Russia. The Bolsheviks claiming to represent the workers, sol-
diers, and peasants, overthrew the Provisional Government, set out to transform
Russia, and promoted revolution throughout the industrialized world. In the first
months following the October Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks strength-
ened their hold on power and removed Russia from the war. The radicalism of the
new regime became obvious as it shut down the elected Constituent Assembly on
its first day of meetings, attacked the church, and established a secret police.
The formation of an anti-Bolshevik Volunteer (White) Army in southern Rus-
sia in December 1917 signaled the beginning of a bloody civil war that lasted for
the next three years. At its weakest moment, the borders of Bolshevik-controlled
Russia coincided roughly with those of 15th-century Muscovy, before it began its
territorial expansion. Surrounded by White forces and their foreign allies, isolated
from other socialists who felt the revolution was premature, and mired in a deep
economic crisis of industrial production and severe food shortages the Bolsheviks
revealed dictatorial underpinnings of their plans for the country: internal oppo-
sition within the party was restricted, other socialists like the Mensheviks and
Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) were persecuted, and a new ruthless secret
police—the Cheka—was established to root out enemies of the revolution. On
August 30, 1918, an SR terrorist, Fanny Kaplan, wounded Lenin in an assassi-
nation attempt. In response, the Cheka unleashed its Red Terror, which was met
by an equally fierce terror campaign by anti-Bolshevik forces in the countryside.
In 1919, the Bolshevik Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, and the Third International was established to coordinate and guide the
efforts of other loyal communist parties. Anti-Bolshevik peasant rebellions, riots,
strikes, and demonstrations were common during the civil war, culminating in
the March 1921 rebellion at the Kronstadt naval base, an erstwhile hotbed of pro-
Bolshevik radicalism. Under great pressure from Lenin, that same month the
Communist Party approved a degree of free trade and small manufacturing while
retaining control of the “commanding heights” of the economy, a less radical pro-
gram known as the New Economic Policy, which remained in place until the late
1920s.
The New Economic Policy signaled a relaxation of the wartime dictatorship,
but a controversy that would last through most of the decade raged within the
Communist Party over whether it should be continued or replaced by a govern-
ment-directed program of rapid growth that would be truer to Communist ide-
als. Another bitterly contested issue concerned whether to attempt to spread the
revolution to other countries or to concentrate on the construction of a new
socialist order in Russia. With Lenin alive these issues did not always come to the
surface, but his illness triggered a brutal struggle inside the party. In January
1922, his health declining, Lenin retired to the town of Gorki, not far from
Moscow. In May 1922 he suffered the first of three strokes, the second in Decem-
ber 1922, which partially paralyzed him, and the third in March 1923, which
Search WWH ::
Custom Search