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Narratives : Communist Russia, 1917-1939 http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sat/texts/narribrus.html |
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Until 1905, Russia's Czars pursued a policy / claim of autocracy, of rule without any interference. There were neither
political parties nor a parliament, and the Okhrana (secret police) pursued suspicious elements, who, if arrested,
were often sent to labour camps in Siberia. In 1861 Russia's serfs had finally been liberated. However, they were dissatisfied with the reform which brought them liberty, as they were given some land, of poor quality - the estate owners had held on to the best land. Moreover, those lands allocated to the peasants were not parcelled and handed out to individuals, but administrated by the Mir or community. Russia's peasants waited for a better deal. Russia's bourgeoisie was equally dissatisfied with the political situation. The Decembrists had hoped for political reform in the 1820es; their movement was suppressed by force. In the 1860es, the Nihilist Movement found wide support among the Russian Intelligentsia, and resulted in a wave of political assassinations, again causing the system to retaliate with suppression, part of which were the Anti-Semitic pogromes of the 1880es to 1900es. Toward the end of the century, a number of political parties were founded by Russian exiles. Following the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), widespead unrest (Revolution of 1905) caused the government to make concessions - political parties were legalized, a parliament, the Duma, constituted. Once the situation normalized, the government returned to assuming a position as if there were no Duma - the assembly lacked political power; twice Czar Nicholas II. dissolved the Duma and called for elections for a new one. He still believed in autocracy. Russia regarded the events which were to escalate into World War I as an opportunity to have Russians forget about their political differences and rally behind the country's flag. Yet, the war went badly for Russia; the superior numbers of the Russian armies did not translate into military success on the ground; the Russian lack of artillery, machine guns resulted in severe losses. Russia suffered from deficiency in essentials, such as food. When the generals failed to produce success, Czar Nicholas took personal command of the armies; still the Russian armies were defeated. In March 1917 the Duma dismissed the Czar and took over (February Revolution). The Menzheviks were the dominant force in the Duma, moderate Socialists. Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky believed, the war still could be won - another Russian offensive only added to the numbers of Russian losses. When the February Revolution took place, Lenin was in exile in Switzerland, a country neutral, but surrounded by belligerent nations. In agreement with the German government, and supplied with a German credit of 40 million gold marks, Lenin secretly crossed Germany and returned to Petrograd (the former St. Petersburg and future Leningrad) via neutral Sweden. He would use the money to spread Bolzhevik propaganda; the Bolzheviks promised to end the war immediately, and to implement a thorough land reform. The Bolzheviks struck in November 1917 (October Revolution); they took control of the cities of Moscow and Petrograd. The Duma government was knocked out; now Russia split in two camps, the Reds and the Whites, the latter army regiments fighting in the name of the Czar (who, with his family, soon was assassinated). The Russian Civil War had begun; it was to last into the early 1920es. The Bolzheviks founded the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic); the main decision-making body was the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, a body of 20 members, formally of equal status. Lenin was regarded the father figure of the RSFSR; other members included Trotsky and Stalin. Lenin suggested the creation of the position of a General Secretary of the Central Committee and offered it to Trotsky, who declined, as did others, until Stalin finally accepted. The position was not meant to be that of the strongman of the RSFSR/USSR, but Stalin kater developed it into such. The USSR was established by the end of 1922, theoretically a federation, in reality controlled from Moscow. The Bolzhevik government (Trotsky) on March 3rd 1918 signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a peace with Germany largely on German conditions. The Entente regarded the RSFSR a German satellite, and supported the Whites for several years. Early on the Bolzhevik government abolished banks and money and ran the country with a coupon currency. The peasants, who finally had been given farms of their own, saw little use in the coupons and produced less surplus food, causing the great famine of 1921. Lenin, reluctantly, reintroduced money (New Economic Policy, NEP). The Central Committee saw a discussion on her political priorities, with Trotsky supporting the policy "World Revolution First" and Stalin "Let us Develop Socialism in Russia First", a debate Stalin won. Lenin had been injured in an assassination attempt, and his health deteriorated rapidly after that; he died in 1924. Now the power struggle between Trotsky and Stalin took center stage; Stalin, whose intimate Beria controlled the secret police (NKVD), soon had the upper hand, eliminating Trostky's supporters and then having Trotsky himself exiled (and later assassinated). By 1928 Stalin felt that his position as the virtual dictator of the USSR was secure (he would continue to eliminate real and potential rivals until his death in 1953; Party Purges, especially in the late 1930es and early 1950es). Dissatisfied with the slow pace of voluntary collectivization of farmland and the largely agricultural structure of Russia's economy; he envisioned the USSR in this state to lose a future world war. Thus he terminated the NEP, replaced it by a planned economy with ambitious Five Year Plans, which - while the capitalist west suffered under the Great Depression - had the USSR experience her greatest economic boom in her 7 decade long history; the first plan was implemented in less than 4 years. This policy was accompanied by a vicious policy towaerd the country's land-owning peasants, labelled Kulaks; they were deprived of their land, tools and livestock and exposed to a planned starvation; the number of victims in Ukraine alone is estimated to figure in the millions. The USSR was a state where everybody was exposed to state supervision; George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm portray Soviet society in literary form. In 1935 miner A.G. Stakhanov was celebrated as hero of labour for having overachieved his quota by 13 times; thus positive incentives for 'appropriate socialist attitude' were given. The USSR long was internationally isolated. In 1922 Germany and the USSR diplomatically recognized each other; British diplomacy eyed at the USSR with suspicion as Stalin, via COMINTERN, controlled the Communist Parties outside the USSR. Until 1934 Stalin ordered the Communist parties within Europe's democracies not to cooperate with the respective Social Democrat / Socialist parties; with a number of European democracies turning into dictatorships in 1933-1934, he changed his mind and ordered cooperation, thus contributing to the Popular Front electoral victories in France and Spain 1936. Britain counteracted by contemplating an Anglo-German-Italian Alliance, until the Popular Front government in Spain was likely to lose the Spanish Civil War and the one in France disintegrated. When the USSR approached Britain in the matter of the maintenance of the balance of powers in Europe, the offer was rejected. In 1939 the USSR and Germany signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact; a few days later, the German invasion of Poland marked the start of World War II. Click here for a more detailed history of the Russian Empire (until 1917), here for a more detailed history of the USSR (1917/1922-1939) |
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