NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 1 of 1

Assessment Schedule – 2007

History: Examine how a force or movement in an historical setting influenced people’s lives, in an essay (90469)

Judgement Statement

Achievement Achievement with Merit Achievement with Excellence

CONTENT

The influence of a related historical The influence of a related historical The influence of a related historical force or movement on an individual force or movement on an individual force or movement on an individual or group leading them to seek or group leading them to seek or group leading them to seek significant change is described. significant change is explained. significant change is comprehensively explained.

and and and

The consequences of actions taken The consequences of actions taken The consequences of actions taken to bring about change are to bring about change are to bring about change are described. explained. comprehensively explained.

(Describing means a relevant idea (Explaining means: describing and (Comprehensive means the essay is stated and followed up with some then making links as to how / why covers a good range of content and amplification.) the force / movement was influential, backs the description and or the consequences were linked to explanation with accurate facts.) the desire to bring about change.) STRUCTURE

The historical information is The historical information is The historical information is organised in an essay format that organised in an essay format that organised in an effective essay includes: includes: format that includes: • an introduction • an introduction • an introduction that clearly states • structured, sequenced • structured, sequenced the focus of the essay paragraphs containing paragraphs containing • sequenced, structured generalisations supported by generalisations supported by paragraphs that contain a wide evidence evidence range of generalisations • a conclusion. • a conclusion. supported by accurate and relevant evidence • a reasoned conclusion.

NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 2 of 2

Suggested Assessment Schedule

Selected historical force or movement: Serbian Selected topic or setting: lead up to the assassination of the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, and the subsequent outbreak of World War I. Individual or group seeking change: Black Hand (and / or other Serbian nationalist groups) Nature of the change sought: overthrow of Austrian control of Serbia / establishment of a pan-Slavic state

Ways in which an historical force or movement influenced an individual or group to seek significant change could include:

Serbian nationalism influenced the lives of Serbian people by focusing their shared sense of grievance against Austria-Hungary. It led more radical nationalists to use violence, and ultimately to assassinate the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, in an attempt to create a crisis which would enable the establishment of a pan-Slavic state. • While other European states such as Germany and Italy had unified in the 1870s along ethnic lines, Austria- Hungary seemed to be the main obstacle to Serbia’s similar goal. • Patriotic books and newspapers carried the same pan-Slav message, and were widely read. In addition, free education had been extended to more (male) children from the 1880s. A strongly nationalistic curriculum was taught. The basic geography textbook showed much of the southern Balkans as Serbian. History texts contained a similar message, and included tales of heroic martyrs who had killed, or were killed, for their country. • The ruling Serbian royal family was seen by many as being too weak in its dealing with Austria-Hungary. It seemed to many that the King had allowed Austria-Hungary to dominate Serbia’s economy since the 1878 Congress of Berlin. (By 1905, 84 percent of Serbian exports went to Austria-Hungary, and Austria supplied 53 percent of goods entering Serbia.) Anti-monarchy feelings intensified when in 1903 police fired on students who were demonstrating against King Obrenovic’s unwillingness to stand up to Austria-Hungary. That same year a group of young, nationalist Army officers lost all patience with the king: led by Dragutin Dimitrijevic (known as Apis, or “the Bee”), they killed the king. This act showed that nationalism had strongly influenced elements within the Army, and it showed that they were not under the full control of their senior officers. • In 1908 Austria precipitated the “Bosnian Crisis” by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prior to this crisis, some five million Slavs were already living within the borders of Austria-Hungary. Even though Serbia had been granted its independence from Turkey in 1878, it was Austria-Hungary that had been granted administrative control of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This angered Serbia, which had hoped to unite the Slavic people there with those in Serbia. Relations deteriorated further from 1878 when Austria-Hungary began a programme of crushing by force the customs, language, religion and other Slavic ways of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina outraged Serbian nationalists, not least because a further one million Serbs living in Bosnia-Herzegovina were now under full Austrian control. • After the Bosnian Crisis in 1908 a secret Serbian nationalist society – the Narodna Odbrana (National Defence) – was formed. It engaged in anti-Austrian political action and propaganda. A much more dangerous organisation was the very secretive “Black Hand”. It was organised in 1911 by Apis (“the Bee”) from the remnants of those who had assassinated the Serbian king in 1903. The Black Hand aimed to create a Greater Serbian state. To this end, it trained guerrilla fighters and saboteurs, and arranged political murders. It also infiltrated the Narodna Odbrana from where it was able to publish virulently anti-Austrian propaganda. While few Serbs shared the Black Hand’s radical views, many were in tune with its general anti-Austrian position. • After the first Balkan War, where Serbia almost doubled in size, Austria-Hungary was instrumental in having a new state – Albania – created between Serbia and the Adriatic coast. (Austria-Hungary was fearful that an expanding Serbia would be a threat to its own security, especially as Serbia wished to further expand by encouraging other Slavs to join with it.) Serbia, for its part, was outraged as it lost access to the sea. Sea access would have allowed Serbia to trade more freely, thus escaping economic domination by Austria- Hungary. In addition, sea access could have dramatically increased Serbia’s power through allowing it to develop a Navy, bringing its pan-Slavic goal closer to realisation. Consequently, Austro-Serbian relations deteriorated even further. • Finally, the date of the Austrian Archduke’s visit – 28 June, the anniversary of Serbia’s defeat by Turkey in the 14th century – was extremely provocative to Serbian nationalists. Black Hand was determined to respond to this provocation.

NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 3 of 3

Consequences of actions by the individual or group to bring about change could include:

Austria-Hungary’s Actions • Austria-Hungary was outraged and was determined to crush Serbia once and for all. The Austrian government sought backing from Germany (the “blank cheque”) as it did not wish to risk war alone against Russia, should Russia make good on its guarantee to defend Serbia if it was attacked. • An extremely harsh ultimatum was sent to Serbia on 23 July 1914. The Serbian government had not backed the actions of the “Black Hand” and, in order to avoid war, agreed to most of the terms, except the one that would have extended Austrian control deep into the heart of the Serbian government: “This cannot be accepted, as this is a violation of the constitution and of criminal procedure.” Serbia also suggested that the International Court at The Hague or the Great Powers could be called upon to intervene. This did not satisfy Austria-Hungary, which really wanted war in order to crush Serbia’s pan-Slavic aspirations. • Despite efforts by Britain to negotiate a settlement, on 28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

The Alliance System • Encouraged by French assurances of support, Russia mobilised its troops in support of Serbia, despite a flurry of urgent telegrams between Germany and Russia (the “Willy-Nicky” telegrams). Russia was determined that it would not let Serbia down, or back down itself, as it had done through lack of military preparedness after the 1908 Bosnian Crisis. • In accordance with the Schlieffen Plan (which required the defeat of France within six weeks using 90% of Germany’s military strength, in order that Germany’s full military might could then be turned on Russia), Germany mobilised in preparation for its pre-emptive attack on France. Ultimatums were issued by Germany to Russia demanding that it demobilise, and to France demanding that it remain neutral. In response, France mobilised. • Germany subsequently invaded Luxembourg and neutral Belgium (whose neutrality was guaranteed by the Treaty of London) in order to attack France. Belgian troops put up unexpectedly stiff resistance. Britain’s commitment to Belgium left Britain with no option but to enter the war too. In all likelihood, Britain’s commitments to France and Russia through the Triple Entente, and its concern about a Europe dominated by a victorious Germany, would have seen it enter the war anyway. Russia surprised Germany with the speed of its attack on East Prussia. The Great War had begun.

NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 4 of 4

Selected historical force or movement: Vietnamese nationalism (communist-influenced) Selected topic or setting: . Individual or group seeking change: (and / or the Viet Minh) Nature of the change sought: Overthrow of French rule in

Ways in which an historical force or movement influenced an individual or group to seek significant change could include:

Vietnamese nationalism, coupled with a desire for freedom from colonial rule, was a powerful force for those like Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh who attempted to overthrow French (and Japanese) rule in Vietnam. • A long history of foreign intervention, especially by China, had led to regular uprisings that helped create a sense of national identity based on a strong resentment of foreign interference. Despite regional differences, there was a common language in Vietnam (until at least the arrival of the French). and Buddhism influenced cultural development. For most, life was village-based; the family and village leaders were extremely important, more so than an Emperor or other ruler. • Vietnamese nationalism, and a desire to oust the French, was fuelled by actions taken by the French colonial rulers. Under the French laws applicable to individuals, Vietnamese were prohibited from travelling outside their districts without identity papers; and they were not allowed to publish, meet, or organise. They were subject to corvee, and they could be imprisoned at the whim of any French magistrate. By 1930 more than 80 percent of the riceland in Cochinchina was owned by 25 percent of the landowners, and 57 percent of the rural population were landless peasants working on large estates. More than ninety percent of rubber plantations were French owned. Two-thirds of the coal mined in Vietnam (nearly two million tonnes in 1927) was exported to France. Under French rule, the number of elementary schools was gradually increased, but even by 1925 it was estimated that no more than one school-age child in ten was receiving schooling. As a result, Vietnam's high degree of literacy declined dramatically during the colonial period. Economic hardship during the Depression hit Vietnamese peasants hardest. By 1930 rubber prices had plummeted to less than one-fourth their 1928 value. Peasants were forced to sell at least twice as much to pay the same amount in taxes or other debts. Floods, famine, and food riots plagued the countryside. • Ho Chi Minh’s father was a nationalist who disliked French rule of Vietnam, no matter how indirect in the central region. Ho was a messenger for his father’s activities and later participated in a series of tax revolts. Through his Western-style education, Ho had learned of the high ideals of the French Revolution – “liberty, equality and fraternity”. He travelled to France in 1911 and joined the French communist party while in Paris. He took great interest in the anti-colonial views of Lenin (leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917). Later, Ho studied and taught in the Soviet Union for a period. Ho came to believe that a total focus on the goal of independence was the only way that Vietnam would be free. Formed in 1941, the Viet Minh was a nationalist rather than communist organisation, although beliefs such as equality and land distribution to the peasants were important. o Denied a legal outlet for political expression, nationalists in the north joined the forcefully expanding philosophy of communism during the 1920’s, while in the freer south, nationalists adopted the democratic views of Sun Yat-sen. The gulf separating north and south was now, for all practical purposes, complete and unbridgeable, made so by the radically different methods of nationalist expression adopted by the two regions. Legally, politically and philosophically, was, by the end of the Second World War, a sovereign nation, distinctly different in culture and national expression from the nation of .

Consequences of actions by the person or people to bring about change could include: Political • Ho founded a newspaper while in Paris – Le Paria – in order to publish his criticism of French colonial policy in Vietnam. He returned briefly to Vietnam and in 1925 founded the Revolutionary Youth League of Vietnam (Ho believed that the youth would be the driving force of the revolution). Ho also brought other communist factions within Vietnam together to form the Indochina Communist Party in 1930. He issued a policy statement advocating freedom of assembly, speech and the press in Vietnam: “the [Communist] Party must strive to organise a broad Democratic Nationalist Party.” Various mass organisations including unions, a peasants’ association, a women's association, a relief society, and a youth league were to be organised under the new party. • Ho returned to Vietnam in 1940 and established the Viet Minh. This was a coalition which all of the nationalist groups in Vietnam were encouraged to join, irrespective of any differences they might have. Ho took personal charge of the Viet Minh after returning from a period of captivity in China. The Viet Minh would use all means, including military, to achieve its goal of an independent Vietnam. • When the Japanese were ousted from Vietnam in August 1945, Ho established a Vietnamese government in Hanoi, and proclaimed an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho used words from the American Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Ho’s Viet Minh was not strong enough to resist the return of the French, so he negotiated a compromise that saw the DRV reduced to the status of a “free state within the French Union of Indochinese states” – a most unsatisfactory arrangement, but one both sides knew would not last.) NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 5 of 5

• The Viet Minh’s position was to negotiate to unite Vietnam under a Viet Minh government. Despite the efforts of Ho’s delegate, Pham Van Dong, the real players at the conference were the major powers. The “temporary” division of Vietnam was acceptable only because the Viet Minh already controlled up to two-thirds of Vietnam, and because of the promise of elections in 1956 – Ho (and everybody else) believed that the DRV would finally be established through the electoral process….

Military • Japan: Ho and the Viet Minh organised resistance to the Japanese occupation during WWII. Ho called for a general uprising when the Japanese surrendered on 10 August 1945. The uprising’s slogan was: “Break open the rice stores to avert famine.” (This was in order to feed the starving .) • France: Ho and the Viet Minh also organised resistance against the return of the French after WWII. This led to the First Indo-China War. As conflict with the French increased Ho ensured the survival of the Viet Minh by moving into the mountains and conducting a guerrilla campaign. The decisive battle of the First Indo-China War was at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Ho knew that to have a strong position from which to negotiate Vietnamese independence at the upcoming peace talks in Geneva, the Viet Minh would have to win. Ho was prepared to sustain massive losses in order to win.

Social / Economic • As WWII drew to an end, famine conditions occurred in the countryside, and unemployment was rampant in the cities. In the Red River Delta alone, more than 500 000 people died of starvation between March and May 1945. The Viet Minh distributed food to the starving peasants during the August Revolution. (“Break open the rice stores to avert famine.”) • After WWII and the return of the French, and particularly as French rule broke down, the Viet Minh created its own local administration to help run the countryside in its control. Villages were given – for the first time ever – a real say in governing themselves. • Rents were reduced, and in some cases land was redistributed to the peasants (although the Viet Minh relied on landlords, too, for support, so couldn’t afford to antagonise them too much). Debts were often written off. Education was increasingly provided. The tax system was changed to relieve the burden on the peasants. NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 6 of 6

Selected historical force or movement: Bolshevism / Communism Selected topic or setting: Russian Revolution Individual or group seeking change: Lenin / the Bolsheviks Nature of the change sought: overthrow of the Tsarist regime and establishment of a Bolshevik state

Ways in which an historical force or movement influenced an individual or group to seek significant change could include:

Lenin (building on the ideas of Engels and Marx) was fundamental to the development of Bolshevism / Russian communism as an historical force / movement. Social, economic and political conditions peculiar to Russia directly influenced the shape of Bolshevism and its goal of overthrowing the Tsarist regime and establishing a Bolshevik state. Lenin’s view was that change in Russia should be brought about by a relatively small group of dedicated revolutionaries, rather than by a mass movement. Lenin deviated from the orthodox Marxist view that the workers’ revolution would come only after a bourgeois class had developed and taken power, a process which could possibly take up to a century. He believed that the proletariat and (less so) the peasants, led by his small group of revolutionaries, could bypass this phase and proceed directly to the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

Economic and social conditions which influenced the Bolsheviks’ policy and their desire to seek change (overthrow of the Tsar; redistribution of land to the peasants; power to the workers through the establishment of soviets): • The abolition of serfdom in 1861 left peasants legally free but still economically oppressed because of redemption payments to be paid to the State. Extreme poverty was exacerbated by enormous population growth, low agricultural productivity and high taxes. • Urban workers suffered from overcrowded housing with often unsanitary and dangerous conditions, as well as long hours at work (on the eve of WWI a 10-hour workday, six days a week, was the average and many were working 11–12 hours a day by 1916). On the other hand, workers living in cities were exposed to new ideas about the social and political order. • Centuries of oppression towards the lower classes and the failure of land reforms in the early 1900s saw increased peasant disturbances and sometimes full revolts, the goal being to secure ownership of their land. (Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.) • The growth of a new “proletariat', due to being crowded together in the cities, allowed revolutionary ideas of freedom from oppression to spread. Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital of St Petersburg swelled from one to two million, with Moscow experiencing similar growth. In one 1904 survey, it was found that an average of 16 people shared each apartment in St Petersburg, with six people per room.

Political conditions which influenced the Bolsheviks’ policy and their desire to seek change (overthrow of the Tsar; power to the workers through the establishment of soviets): • Tsar Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler. He believed in the myth of the ruler as a saintly and blessed father of his people. A reactionary and often ignorant clergy kept religion static and persecuted dissenters, and non-Russian nationalities in the empire were repressed. Pogroms were also instituted against the Jews, which turned many radical Jews to revolutionary activities. Despite this, Nicholas was unable to believe that true Russians were not as devoted to him as he felt he was to them. He was thus unwilling to allow the democratic reforms that might have prevented revolution. Even after “Bloody Sunday” and the failed 1905 “revolution”, when he felt forced to allow limited civil rights (October Manifesto) and democratic representation (the Duma), he tried to limit these in every possible way. Article 87 of the 1906 Fundamental State Laws reaffirmed his autocratic rule, and the first two “uncooperative” Dumas were dismissed. Unfulfilled hopes of democracy fueled the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary ideas and violence targeted at the Tsarist regime. • Despite the Tsar’s autocratic regime, there was a long history of opposition (although it had never been able to achieve unity of purpose or action). From the 1890s socialists of different nationalities formed their own parties, a process accelerated by the disastrous Russo-Japanese War. Russian liberal activists from the zemstva (local councils) and from the professions joined with diverse nationalist groups to form an anti-autocratic alliance. Lenin, politicised in part by the execution of his brother for his part in a plot to assassinate the Tsar, took a Marxist-inspired revolutionary approach. Lenin opposed mass-movement groups, arguing instead for a small, dedicated and tightly controlled core to drive forward to the revolution, when the time was right. • In the wake of the Russo-Japanese War and the turmoil caused by “Bloody Sunday”, soviets (councils of workers and soldiers) were formed in some cities, the most significant being that in St Petersburg. (Bolsheviks were a minority here, but were a majority in the less significant Moscow soviet.) This was a direct challenge to the Tsar’s authority, and was tolerated only whilst the regime struggled to reassert its control. Moderate constitutional parties formed and held seats in the newly formed Duma, but their scope for decisive action was limited. Leftist parties resorted to assassinations and terror, but some also participated in the elections. Factional fighting within the Left resulted in the establishment of a separate Bolshevik party in 1913, with Lenin its leader. Except where expediency demanded it, the Bolsheviks refused to cooperate with other parties. • During WWI, Lenin was appalled that many socialist parties inside and outside Russia supported the war. Under Lenin, the Bolsheviks were convinced to adopt an internationalist stance of worker unity irrespective of national NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 7 of 7

boundaries, and total opposition to what Lenin saw as an exploitative capitalist-inspired war. These views were articulated in Lenin’s “April Theses”, which he propounded upon his return in 1917 in the wake of the March Revolution (Tsar Nicholas” bloodless abdication. From this point on, a Provisional Government and the Petrograd soviet co-existed uneasily as each competed for legitimacy amongst the people in an arrangement known as “Dual Power”). Other measures proposed by Lenin included non co-operation with the “bourgeois” Provisional Government; the abolition of the police, army and state bureaucracy; rejection of parliamentary democracy in favour of workers’ control of the state through the system of soviets; and that land should be given to the peasants. These views were neatly summed up in the slogan: “Peace, Land, Bread.”

Conditions during WWI which influenced the Bolsheviks’ policy and their desire to seek change – (including pulling out of the war; power to the workers and soldiers through the establishment of soviets): • One of Nicholas's reasons for going to war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost during the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese war, and undermine revolutionary activity by focusing his people’s minds and energies on a common enemy – Germany. Initially this worked, but the patriotic unity did not last long. Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster. In the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg, over 120 000 Russian troops were killed, wounded, or captured, while Germany suffered only 20 000 casualties. • In the autumn of 1915 Nicholas had taken direct command of the army, meaning that he could not escape personal responsibility for the ongoing disasters. Worse still, his ambitious though incapable (German) wife Alexandra was left in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Grigori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely resented. • In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern front. The superior German army – better led, better trained, better supplied – was devastatingly effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces. By the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1.6 and 1.8 million soldiers, with an additional two million prisoners of war and one million missing – a total of nearly five million men. Furthermore, soldiers went hungry and lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Rampant discontent lowered morale, only to be further undermined by a series of military defeats. Mutinies began to occur, and in 1916 reports of fraternising with the enemy started to circulate. The officer class also saw dramatic turnover, especially in the lower ranks, which quickly filled with rising soldiers usually of peasant or worker backgrounds; these men would play a large role in the politicisation of the troops in 1917. The crisis in morale “was rooted fundamentally in the feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory could be achieved”. • By the end of 1915, there were already clear signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. Inflation rapidly forced down real incomes, and shortages made it difficult to buy even what one could afford. Shortages were especially a problem in the capital, Petrograd, where distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly bad. The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers caused many more labour riots and strikes. Conscription, already unpopular, stripped skilled workers from the cities, and these workers had to be replaced with unskilled peasants. When famine began to hit due to the poor railway system, workers abandoned the cities in droves to look for food. Tsar Nicholas was blamed for all these crises, and what little support he had left began to crumble, culminating in his abdication in March 1917.

The Bolsheviks’ drive for power • In early July 1917, as the war progressed, widespread discontent in Petrograd led to militant demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Provisional Government. The Bolshevik leadership initially opposed this as premature (they were still a minority party), but ended up leading the demonstrations, hoping to prevent any bloodshed. They felt compelled to do this to win the trust of the workers, and also in recognition of the fact that many of the Bolshevik rank and file were already organising and supporting the demonstrations. In the crackdown that followed, Lenin escaped into hiding (in Finland); other leading Bolsheviks did so too, or were arrested. • Events not instigated by the Bolsheviks played decisively into their hands and allowed them to pursue their objectives. General Kornilov, appointed military commander by the Provisional Government, decided to take control of Petrograd himself and neutralise the growing Bolshevik threat. When Prime Minister Kerensky realised what was happening, he panicked and accepted the Bolsheviks’ offer of Red Guards to defend the capital. Kornilov's unsuccessful takeover ended without bloodshed and the Bolsheviks were seen as “defenders of the city”. Their support increased immensely; at the same time support for Kerensky and the Provisional Government eroded. The Bolsheviks became the majority party in the Petrograd Soviet in early September 1917 with Leon Trotsky becoming the Soviet's Chairman. • Radical anti-war Social Democrats merged with the Bolsheviks in August, and the Bolshevik Central Committee spent September and October of 1917 debating whether they should use parliamentary methods or whether they should seize power by force. Eventually Lenin’s repeated calls from abroad to overthrow the Provisional Government were heeded, and a Military Revolutionary Council (led by Trotsky) was set up to do the planning. Lenin returned late in October shortly before the revolution was successfully and relatively bloodlessly achieved. NCEA Level 2 History (90469) 2007 — page 8 of 8

Consequences of attempts by the individual or group to bring about change could include: • In the wake of the “revolution”, the Bolsheviks announced the establishment of a new Provisional Government but, in elections that an over-confident Lenin allowed, the Bolsheviks gained only 24% of the popular vote (the opposition Socialist Revolutionaries gained over 40%). Shocked but undeterred, Lenin established a parallel Constituent Assembly, packed it with his followers, and declared it to be the Provisional Government. The congress duly passed all the measures submitted to it by the government spokesmen, including the “Declaration of Rights”. Russia became a “Federation of Soviet Republics”, to be known as the “Russian Soviet Socialist Republic”, a name that was retained until 1924, when it was renamed “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” The congress acknowledged the Sovnarkom (Council of People's Commissars) as the country's legitimate government, removing from its name the adjective “provisional”. It also approved the principle of universal labour obligation. In other centres, the Bolshevik party also successfully took over. • In March 1918 the Bolsheviks negotiated a separate peace with Germany (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). This provoked opposition from the Bolsheviks’ erstwhile allies in the government, but Lenin had little interest in placating them. It was also quite easy for Lenin to deliver on his other promise – land to the peasants. They had been seizing and dividing up large estates for almost a year before Lenin legally recognised this accomplished fact. What the peasants did not realise was that just as Lenin planned to dispose of Brest-Litovsk at the first opportunity, so too did he plan to nationalise the peasants’ land as soon as he could get away with it. Delivering on the promise of “Bread” was more difficult with the economy suffering. Lenin merely intensified the brutality of enforcement of the previous Provisional Government’s price controls on food; rather than starve in the cities, large percentages of the urban population returned to their family farms in the country. (In the end, even this desperate move would not save many of them from starvation.) • A secret police force, the Cheka, was quickly established. It was brutal and all-powerful. As the high-ranking Chekist Latsis explained: “The Extraordinary Commission [Cheka] is neither an investigating body nor a tribunal. It is an organ of struggle, acting on the home front of a civil war... We are not carrying out war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class.” The Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana, had numbered 15 000, which made it by far the largest body of its kind in the old world. By contrast, the Cheka, within three years of its establishment, had a strength of 250 000 full-time agents. Censorship was imposed, other political parties were banned and businesses and banks chaotically nationalised. Conscription and compulsory labour were introduced. • All of these actions provoked a reaction, and opposition to the Bolsheviks formed a loose and fractious coalition known as the “Whites”. Allied troops were also landed in Russian ports so that, as Churchill said, Bolshevism would be “strangled in its cradle” and war materiel given by France and Britain would not fall into German hands. Despite major setbacks for Trotsky’s newly formed Red Army, it was able to hold out due to strict discipline, terror, and unity of purpose. Trotsky had personally taken control of Petrograd’s defenses when a surprise attack by British-backed “Whites” threatened to take the city. The major fighting was over by the end of 1920, and the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power. The Russian economy, however, was shattered and drought and famine in 1920-21 saw horrific scenes of starvation. Between the civil war and its aftermath, some 15 million Russians died. • War Communism (central control of industry and food production) saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. Private industry and trade were outlawed, and the newly established (and barely stable) state was unable to run the economy on a sufficient scale. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20% of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5%, and iron to 2% of pre-war levels. The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62% of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37% of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The ruble collapsed and was replaced by a system of bartering. The turning point was the Kronstadt rebellion at the naval base in February, 1921. The rebellion had a startling effect on Lenin (it was eventually crushed by the Red Army) because the Kronstadt sailors had been among the strongest supporters of the Bolsheviks. After the rebellion, Lenin ended the policy of War Communism and replaced it with the New Economic Policy. • Under the New Economic Policy – resented bitterly by ardent Marxists in the party – Lenin tacitly acknowledged that it was impractical to impose full socialist economic theory. To explain the NEP, Lenin had said “We are not civilised enough for socialism”, referring to the fact that Russia was still a primarily agrarian nation, with a very small urban population and a weak industrial base, and thus it did not meet the economic criteria necessary for full socialism. Limited free trade was permitted, after the requisite taxes had been paid. Major industries such as coal and steel remained nationalised. Lenin also introduced the Fundamental Law of the Exploitation of Land by the Workers, which ensured that the peasants had a choice of land tenure. As anticipated, these two measures saw agricultural production increase rapidly. A resultant imbalance between rural and industrial production saw inflation rise. Peasants responded by hoarding grain, or selling to middle-men who profited from speculative trading, but overall the economy began to improve. Joseph Stalin ended the NEP in 1928, as he introduced the first Five Year Plan, which focused on industrialisation and collectivisation of agricultural holdings.