AS FP2 : Consolidating the One-Party State Flashcards
(10 cards)
In regards to the consolidation of power, what happened in January and March of 1918?
In January 1918, workers were put in control of the railways. The old Red Guards were demobalised and a new Red Army was created to protect the regime. In March, Trotsky was placed as the head of this army - the same month that the Capital moved from Petrograd to Moscow.
What was the ‘Separation Decree’, what was its impact on culture and control?
Through the Separation Decree the Church and State were separated, although Religion was not banned Russia became a Secular State with the government giving no further support to the Orthodox Church.
The consequences of this were that there was a consistent attack on religion (expanded on in A2 FP2) and that Russia moved to using the Gregorian Calander in February 1918.
How did the decree on land help to consolidate the Bolshevik’s position?
The decree on land was essentially stolen from the Socialist Revolutionaries and therefore helped to remove that group’s appeal.
What was the 1918 Constitution?
The 1918 Constitution helped to oversee the transition to a socialist society. Russia became the “Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic” (RSFSR) in July 1918, with supreme power laying with the ‘elected’ soviets. Sovnarkom was to be elected by a Central committee.
What were the limitations of the 1918 Constitution?
- ‘Former people’ were deprived of the vote and it was only available to the ‘toiling masses’.
- Peasants vote was only worth a 1/5 of the workers’ votes.
- While Sovnarkom was theoretically elected by congress, in practice it was chosen by the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
- Congress only met at intervals so true power lay with Sovnarkom.
- Centralised structure meant that true power lay with the party.
What caused the red terror?
In the summer of 1918, 2 assassination attempts on Lenin’s life gave Felix Dzerzhinsky (head of the Cheka) the excuse to unleash the Red Terror.
What was the result of the Red Terror?
- Thousands of Russians rounded up and executed for anti-Boslehvik activity, including many members of opposing political parties.
- Many were executed for being aristocrats or members of the middle class.
- The Tsar and his family were executed. By the end of the terror in 1922, an estimated 500,000 Russians had died.
As a result, the Bolshevik’s hold on government was strengthening.
How did ending the war consildate the Bolsheviks’ power?
Opposition to the Treaty of Brest Litovsk made civil war inevitable but it also consolidated the one-party state as a wedge was driven between the SRs and Lenin.
How did Lenin consolidate the one-party state through class warfare?
The Bolsheviks encouraged class warfare, socialist press condemned the Bourgeoisie as “bloodsuckers” and “enemies of the people”. The State licensed and encouraged people to plunder the houses of the Bourgeoisie.
Lenin actively encouraged class warfare as a means of terrorising the Bourgeoisie into submission.
Bolshevik power was accompanied with an anarchy in the towns and cities. Maxim Gorky described it as a “Pogrom of greed, hatred and violence.” In one province, Kadets were thrown one by one into a blast furnace by Red Guards.
How did Terror reinforce the Bolsheviks’ position?
On December 7th 1918, the Cheka were established for “combatting counter-revolution and sabotage”. The Kadet party was denounced and outlawed, soon followed by the Mensheviks and the SRs before the end of 1917.
The legal system was abolished and replaced with “revolutionary justie” which was arbitrary and violent in character. Anyone accused of being Bourgeoisie could be arrested, beaten or robbed.
