Unit Ten

Western Civilization

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND THE RISE AND FALL OF COMMUNISM1wb

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:

1. GROWTH OF THE NATION-STATE: How has the rise of the Nation as a political, economic, social and cultural institution influenced world events?

2. WARFARE: How has the nature of War and Peace impacted world history?

3. ECONOMIC GROWTH: How has the evolution of Economic Systems, as well as technological developments, impacted world civilization?

4. HISTORIOGRAPHY: How has the course of time impacted the changing views

of history and historical events?

OVERVIEW:

From November 1917, until 1991 when the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics was disbanded, the words Communist Russia often struck fear and concern in the minds of millions of people. For that period the world was very aware of all things Russian. Communism became a by word for evil or perverse. Since the fall of the Russian Communist state that concern and lessened and we have been able to be a little more objective about the impact of communism on world history. This unit will attempt to trace the rise and the fall of Russian Communism and its influence upon the world stage.

We will start this unit with a discussion of how the theory of Communism, first developed and explained by Karl Marx and Frederick Engel, came to fruition in Russia. We will discuss the evolution of Russian Marxism. We will then turn to the Russian Revolution or the two revolutions of 1917: The first revolution, which toppled the government of the tsars and established the Provisional Government, and then the second, which brought about Lenin and the communist state of Russia. Once Lenin and his Bolshevik party were in power they would begin to construct the soviet world order. We will look at exactly how that would be constructed in Russia.

After we explore the nature and events of the Russian Revolution we will trace the events of Soviet history to its end in the 1990’s. The role of Stalin first as a disciple of Lenin, and then as leader of the new soviet state will be considered. We will trace the course of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is called in Russia. One of the results of that war was that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics emerges as a major player in the world scene. Russia’s military and economy commanded world respect. The Cold War, as it has come to be called, was the conflict between the two great powers and their allies of the post war era, i.e. Russia and the United States. At its height in the 1960’s the Cold War threatened to destroy the whole world with thermonuclear war. By the late 1980’s, early 1990’s the Cold War and Communism would come to an end and the world moved into a new era just in time for the twenty-first century.

Today, all eyes are on the direction Russia will take. Will it return to Communism, will it become a great beacon for democracy and capitalism, or will it move in its own unique pattern? The next few years will probably show us the direction the new Russian state will take. We are all concerned because it is clear that the impact will be profound on the rest of the world community.

CONTENT QUESTIONS:

1. How did Communism come to Russia?

2. What were the chief results of the Revolution of 1905?

3. What were the background causes of the March (or February) Revolution?

4. Why did the Provisional Government not solve the problems of Russia?

5. What were the background causes of the October (or November/ Bolshevik) Revolution?

6. How did Stalin come to power

7. How did Russia industrialize?

8. How did Russia win the Great Patriotic War?

9. How did the Cold War start? How did it end?

10. What direction will modern Russia take in the next few decades?

KEY TERMS:

Decembrists Nikolai Chernyshevsky

George Plekhanov Vissarion Belinsky

Westophile Slavophile

Alexander Herzen April theses

Duma Nicholas II

Rasputin Soviets

“Bloody Sunday” Petrograd

Versailles Treaty Mensheviks

Bolsheviks Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

War Communism New Economic Policy

Five-Year Plans Leon Trotsky

Planned Economy Gosplan

Joseph Stalin V. I. Lenin

March (or February) Revolution November (October) Revolution

Purge Trials Kornilov Revolt

Communism Alexander Kerensky

White armies First Five-Year Plan

Provisional Government Perestroika

Petrograd Soviet Cheka

New Economic Policy (NEP) Nikita Khrushchev

Red Army Great Patriotic War

Cold War U. S. S. R.

General Secretary Kulak

Collective farm Soviet Republics

Stakhanovism movement Sovkhoz

Kolkhoz Central Committee

Constitution of 1936 Sergei Kirov

Battle of Stalingrad Berlin blockade

T-34 Blitzkrieg

Operation Barbarossa Georgi Zhukov

De-Stalinization Andropov

KGB Chernenko

Leonid Brezhnev SALT accords

Glasnost Mikhail Gorbachev

Comrade Commonwealth of Independent States

St. Petersburg Peaceful Coexistence

Alexei Kosygin Kremlin

Boris Yeltsin Vladimir Putin

TIME LINE:

1898 The First Congress of the Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party

(RSDRP) meets, an attempt to unite the many small Russian

socialist/marxist groups.

1905 Revolution of 1905 in Russia Black Sunday

1906 The promised parliament, the Duma, is dissolved

March, 1917 First Russian Revolution; Provisional Government established

Nicholas II abdicates; Royal family imprisoned in Alexander Palace

April 3, 1917 Lenin returns to Russia

April, 1917 U.S. enters war

July, 1917 “July days” Workers and soldiers in Petrograd demand Soviets take power

July 8, 1917 A new provisional government is set up with Kerensky at it's head

August, 1917 The Kornilov revolt

September, 1917 The Bolsheviks win control of the Petrograd Soviet.

October, 1917 The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional government in Petrograd

November 2, 1917 Bolsheviks gain Moscow

March, 1918 The Bolsheviks accept the dictated peace of Brest-Litovsk

July, 1918 Nicholas II is assassinated

November, 1918 Armistice Day; Central Powers surrender

1919 Paris Peace Treaty (Versailles)

1920 Last White army under Wrangel evacuates the Crimea

1921 New Economic Policy in Russia

1922 Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics is organized

1924 Lenin dies

1925 Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev ousted from Politburo

1927 Trotsky, Zinoviev and followers expelled from Party; Stalin takes control

1928 First Five-Year Plan adopted

1934 Kirov assassinated; beginning of Stalinist purges

1936 Show trials of Zinoviev, Kamenev, et al. prosecuted by Vishinsky

Soviet Constitution written

1936-1938 Stalin's Purge Trials

1939 World War II: Germans invade Poland

Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

June 22, 1941 Germany attacks Russia

1943 German surrender at Stalingrad

1945 War ends

1948 Berlin airlift

1949 USSR tests atomic bomb

1953 Death of Stalin

1954 Warsaw Pact established

1955 Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" at 20^th Party Congress Meeting

1958 First Sputnik launched

1959 Khrushchev takes charge

1961 The Berlin Wall is built October

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

1964Khrushchev Ousted; Brezhnev First Secretary

Kosygin become Premier

1970 US-Soviet Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan

1983 Yuri Andropov promoted to Secretariat; Brezhnev dies

1984 Andropov dies; Constantine Chernenko becomes General Secretary

1985 Chernenko dies; Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary

1986 Perestroika begins

1989 Pullout from Afghanistan completed

The Berlin Wall comes down

First multi-candidate elections

1990 End of Communism

Lithuania declares independence

1991 Gorbachev resigns as President, USSR dissolved

Yetstin wins the Russian Federation's first popular presidential election

1996 Yeltsin elected President

1999 Yeltsin resigns as President, Vladimir Putin, becomes President

2000 Putin elected Second President of the Russian Federation

2004 Putin wins reelection with 71% of vote

SOURCES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH:

A. Bibliography:

Berdyaev, Nicolas. The Origin of Russian Communism. (1960).

Brady, R. Kapitalizm: Russia's Struggle to Free Its Economy. (1999).

Brinton, Crane. Anatomy of Revolution. (1957).

Cohen, S. F. Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia. (2000).

Curtiss, John Shelton. The Russian Revolution of 1917. (1957).

Danilov, A. A. and I.N. Souzdaltsev, translated by V.E. Hammond Russian History from the

Great Patriotic War to the New Russia. (2003).

Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin: A Political Biography, 2nd Edition (1994).

Figes, O. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. (2002).

Fitzpatrick, Shelia. The Russian Revolution, 1917-1932. (1982).

King, Greg and Penny Wilson, Fate of the Romanovs. (2003)

Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon. (1946).

Kurth, Peter. Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra. (1998).

LeBlanc, P. Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. (1989).

Radzinsky, E. Stalin. (1996).

Randall, J.H. The Making of the Modern Mind. (1940).

Reed, John. Eastern Europe at War. (1994).

Reed, John. Ten Days That Shook the World. (1922).

Roxburgh, A. The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin. (1991).

H. Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire, 1801–1917. (1967).

Shub, David. Lenin. (1948).

Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. (2003)

Taylor, A. J. P. The Struggle for Mastery of Europe. (1954)

Wolfe, Bertram D. Three Who Made A Revolution. (1960).

B. Web Sites:

Russia - http://www.ssees.ac.uk/russia.htm

Russia - http://www-math.mit.edu/~igorvp/Russia/russia.html

Russia - http://www.geographia.com/russia/

Tsarist Russia – http://www.questia.com/popularSearches/tsarist_russia.jsp

Russian Revolution – http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/russ/rusrev.html

Russian Revolution – http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/russianrev.html

Russian Revolution – http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture5.html

Russian Revolution – http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Russia.htm

Lenin – http://lenin.ussr.com/

Lenin – http://www.casahistoria.net/lenin.html

Marxism -http://www.marxists.org/

Stalin - http://www.stel.ru/stalin/

Great Patriotic War - http://www.vor.ru/55/Photo_Exhibition/Pic_eng.html

Russian Communism – http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761572241/Communism.html

Fall of Communism - http://www.freeessays.cc/db/15/euz131.shtml

Modern Russia –