History of RUSSIA: St. Vladimir to Part 2 By Vladimir Hnízdo It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. That key is Russian national interest.”

W. Churchill, October 1939 Part 2 1. World War I 2. February Revolution 1917 3. October 1917 Revolution and the Bolshevik Dictatorship 4. Civil War, Consolidation of the Soviet State 5. Stalin, Victor of Succession Struggle 6. Collectivization, Great Terror 7. World War II 8. Cold War, De-Stalinization 9. Gorbachev, Perestroika, Collapse of the Soviet Union 10. Putin’s Russia World War I (1914-18)

Allies: France, Britain, Russia, USA (from 1917) vs. Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey

Outpouring of patriotism on both sides But Russian Bolsheviks against war (unlike most other socialists) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CeylV-NloU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7B- nlmdX0g Russian Strategic Goals in North-East

Destruction of German rule in East Prussia and of Austrian rule in Galicia and Bukovina

Initially, some success, but advance halted quickly German offensive Spring 1915 decisive Enormous costs by September 1915 Pushed back 300 miles (Russian Poland, Galicia, most of Baltic lost) Loss of 2 million men (1 mil. as POW’s)

Imperial Russia’s deep deficiencies lack of preparedness Inability of administration in critical situation

Tsar Nicolas II authority quickly weakening Great resentment of Empress Alexandra Rasputin Affair https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Grigori+Rasputin+youtube&view=detail&mid=BA86DCBC3863 82B375A8BA86DCBC386382B375A8&FORM=VIRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b3f2UykG0 February 1917 Revolution  Triggered by food shortages

 Petrograd general strike February 24

 Bloody Sunday Feb. 25

 Initial spontaneity, but Petrograd Soviet and Duma Feb. 28

 Tsar abdicates March 2

 Provisional Government with Soviet support

 Two power centers: the Soviet (Menshevik and SR majority) and the PG (Kadets) Aims of the Provisional Government

 Kadet program: liberal revolution (universal equal civic and political rights)  Immediate aim: to establish order in country and armed forces continuation of the war  Elections to Constituent Assembly that would give permanent government and adopt a democratic constitution; eventually scheduled for November 1917  Any important reforms to be dealt with after the elections  From beginning lacking effective means of control Petrograd Soviet

 Socialist parties: Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), Mensheviks, Bolsheviks initially in minority  Social revolution demands: army’s control to be passed to soldiers’ committees, land redistribution to peasants  1st ALL-Russian Congress of Soviets, early June 1917: 285 SRs, 248 Mensheviks, 105 Bolsheviks  Conditional support of the PG Lenin’s Return  Of decisive importance for the whole course of the Revolution  Passage through Germany and Finland in a sealed railway carriage, arranged by the Germans  On his arrival April 3, April Theses:  All power to the Soviets  End of War  Land to Peasants  Radical, populist, startled even the most radical Bolsheviks  Call for an immediate socialist proletarian revolution, skipping the liberal “bourgeois” stage  Belief that Central and Western Europe was on the brink of socialist revolution; Russia – the weakest link in the imperialist chain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRfvH37PmlU (Lenin’s return) Vladimir I. Lenin Leon D. Trotsky Alexander F. Kerensky (1870 – 1924) (1879 – 1940) (1881 – 1970)  Implications for Bolsheviks: to organize masses against the PG  Lenin manages to bring the Party round the Thesis, on the strength of his personality and growing popularity of the anti- war stance with soldiers and workers  The war --- the most serious and divisive issue for the PG  Soviet leaders, fearing civil war, form coalition with liberals in PG, where now socialists (Mensheviks, SRs, SR-break-away Trudoviks) have 6 out of 16 posts Their policy: Revolutionary Defensism  But Bolsheviks’ determined anti-war opposition June and July Events

 Fatal act of the PG: the offensive of June 1917  After brief advance, German counter-offensive  Collapse, disintegration of Russian front, widespread desertion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QkJjWIHFSA (Dr Zhivago, desertions)  PG coalition falls apart  Uprising when Petrograd garrison ordered to front, Bolsheviks supporting them, but not decided yet to seizepower; the Soviet opposing  Uprising folds in

Kerensky, PG seriously weakened, Bolsheviks strengthened Bolsheviks weakened, seriously PG Kerensky, result: End

Kornilov’s move ends when his Cossacks lay down arms down lay Cossacks his when ends move Kornilov’s 

Bolsheviks “rehabilitated”, Trotsky released Trotsky “rehabilitated”, Bolsheviks

Kerensky condemns Kornilov condemns Kerensky 

Sends Cossacks to occupy Petrograd and disarm its garrison its disarm and Petrograd occupy to Cossacks Sends 

Pushes for measures curbing Soviet power in Army in power Soviet curbing measures for Pushes

General Kornilov appointed Commander appointed Kornilov General Chief by Kerensky by Chief - in - 

Kornilov Affair, August 1917 August Affair, Kornilov

Lenin fleeing into hiding in Finland in hiding into fleeing Lenin

Most Bolshevik leaders (including Trotsky) arrested Trotsky) (including leaders Bolshevik Most

Bolshevik campaign Bolshevik - Anti 

PG without Soviet support Soviet without PG 

Alexander Kerensky Alexander (an SR) becomes the PG prime minister prime PG the becomes SR) (an

October 1917  Cooperation of socialist parties opens for some Bolsheviks the prospect of attaining Soviet power politically  But Lenin resolves for an uprising against the PG  Rapidly changing political fortunes --- Moscow municipal elections, end September: SR falling from 56% to 31%, Mensheviks from 14% to 4%, but Bolsheviks rising from 11% to 31% and Kadets from 17% to 31%  Bolshevik Central Committee, against Lenin’s exhortations (still from his Finland hiding), resolves to wait for the 2nd All-Russian Soviet Congress for the transfer of power to the Soviets  Lenin returns secretly to Petrograd, and on October 10 forces the CC the decision to prepare for an uprising  October 16, the CC approves (19 votes to 2) an immediate armed uprising  The Soviet Congress delayed to October 25; Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) forms October 20, strongly supporting Bolsheviks  Late evening October 24 Lenin starts fom Bolshevik HQs in Institute directing the uprising  Overthrow of the PG a short, limited operation; Red Guards of the MRC storming the Winter Palace, seat of the PG, October 25  The convened Soviet Congress presented with the Bolshevik takeover  Most SR’s and Mensheviks walk out  Rump Soviet approves a Bolshevik government, The Council (Soviet) of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), led by Lenin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ_bkU6m9XQ (October Rev. Lenin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL2ZblXOmhg (October Revolution “debunked”) Bolshevik Dictatorship, Civil War, Consolidation  Bolshevik power seizure split the socialists  But the popular Decrees on Land and Peace, passed October 26, helped gaining control of most provincial Soviets  Immediate measures to destroy all “counter-revolutionary” forces; December 1917, the  Opposition hopes on Constituent Assembly, elected Nov.-Dec.: SR 39.5%, Bolsheviks 22.5%, Kadets 4.5%, Mensheviks 3.2%; convened Jan. 5, next day dissolved by Sovnarkom Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty  Decree on Peace: call for just peace with no annexations or indemnities; Lenin hoping for transforming the war into world revolution, but needing “breathing” space for Russian revolution  Talks with Germans in Brest-Litovsk start Nov. 16, but dragging on  Germans resume hostilities, advancing to within 150 miles of Petrograd; Lenin forcibly for acceptance of their terms  Peace treaty signed March 1918: Russia losing 34% of population (55 mil.), 34% of agr. land, 54% of industry, 89% of coalmines  But Lenin vindicated within 6 months Some Early Events  Administrative changes: February 1918, to Gregorian Calendar; March, moving the capital to Moscow March, 7th Party Congress, the RSDLP(b) to the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)  July 1918, failed uprising of Left SR  August 30, 1918, assassination attempt on Lenin; Red Terror begins Civil War  Mid-May 1919, already civil war; involvement of Czechoslovak Legions, June 1918  Execution of imperial family, 16-17 July 1918  Don River Cossacks; white Guards, Kornilov, Denikin; Siberia, Kolchak, Anglo-French Intervention  Red Army, organized and led by Trotsky: conscription, ex-tsarist officers controlled by political commissars  After initial White advances, Red Army (eventuall of 5 million) wins 1920-21  Soviet Power on all the territory of pre-war Russian Empire, except Baltic countries (incl. Finland), parts of Poland and of new Romania

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih7FcT5mBRM (Czechoslovak Legions) Tsar Nicolas II, Empress Alexandra, and their children War Communism, Comintern  Civil-war economy: draconian command system enforced by state; private trade abolished; industries run by militarized labor; agricultural requisitioned by force from peasants; universal rationing replacing money  2-6 March 1919, 1st Congress of the Communist International Comintern); delegates from 34 parties in Europe and the US; to organize and lead proletarian revolution(s)  Revolutionary wave sweeps through post-war Europe; revolts and Soviets in Germany (Munich, Berlin) and Hungary (Budapest)  August 1920, Battle of Warsaw, Red Army defeated - decisive turn The NEP, Consolidation  Enormous costs of the civil-war victory; peasants turning against Bolsheviks: slogans “Soviets without Bolsheviks!”, “Long live the Bolsheviks! Death to the Communists!”; workers striking across the country  March 1921; Kronstadt rebellion, its brutal suppression; 10th Party Congress secretly banning factions  Lenins decision: tactical retreat, consolidation; food requisionings replaced by a tax in kind  New Economic Policy (NEP): limited market economy  Gradual restoration of a modicum of prosperity, but pre-war levels of production achieved only in 1928 , 4 years after Lenin’s death, by Stalin Succession Struggle, Stalin the Victor

 Lenin’s Testament: Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bucharin, Trotsky, Stalin  Lenin dies January 1924; Stalin, the General Secretary, deftly out-maneuvering Trotsky  Trotsky eventually expelled from the CC in October, and the Party, in November 1927; in 1928 expelled from the Soviet Union  Zinoviev and Kamenev initially supported Stalin against Trotsky, but also purged  By 1928 Stalin clear victor of succession Lenin’ funeral January 1924

Dzherzhinsky funeral July 1926

End of NEP: Five Year Plan, Collectivizaation

 Bad harvest in 1927; Stalin’s response: return to methods of the Civil War – end of Lenin’s NEP  Five Year Plan: an idustrilalization leap forward to Socialist Society of abundance; Socialism in One Country  Collectivization of agriculture: brutal-force means of class of Russian peasantry (120 mi. people) into a system of collective farms; resistance brutally suppressed by mens of class struggle: destruction of the “kulaks” as a class  Horrific costs: 2 million kulaks deported into special settlements or labor camps; millions run from the coll. farms; Terror-Famine victims, some 8 million, especially in Ukraine (genocide)  Disastrous tempo to meet the fantastic targets of 5 Year Plan, in 1932 workers’ wages half of the 1928 level; country brought to brink of catastrophe; Stalin relentlessly pressing on  Party Congress January 1934: “Congress of Victors”  Real term results: re-enslavement of peasantry (of more than 100 people) impoverishment and loss of all rights of the working class Great Purge/Terror

 At Congress of Victors Stalin hailed for completing Lenin’s Revolution; cult of his personality  But some 150 (secret) CC ballots against him; Stalin’s paranoia  December 1934, assassinated; used by Stalin to unleash a purge of the Party and government institutions  Grown into the Great Purge/Terror of 1936-38 encompassing on a vast and bloody scale all sections of Soviet society  Of 139 CC members elected at Congress of Victors 102 shot, only 1/3 of Congress delegates survived --- it was the Congress of Victims  Purge in the Red Army: 3 marshals out of 5, 13 of 15 Army Commanders, 154 of 186 Division Comanders, altogether more than 25% Red Army officer corp; most spectacular victim: Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Deputy Commissar for Defense Red Army’s fighting capacity crippled , disastrous initial phase of the war in 1941  Leading members of intelligentsia (intellectuals, artists, writers) targeted an masse too  Officials total number of victims: over 1.5 million, of which over 680,000 shot (average of 1,000 executions a day)  Show trials: August 1936, Zinoviev, Kamenev + 14 other Bolshevik leaders sentenced to death after confessing to unimaginable crimes;  January 1937, 17 former supporters of Trotsky sentenced to death  March 1938, Bukharin, Yagoda + 12 other Bolsheviks sentenced to death after confessing to conspire in “Trotsky-Zinoviev Center” to assassinate Soviet leaders, sabotage economy and spy for fascist states  Many foreign observers duped  Were the unimaginable horrors of Collectivization and Great Purge inevitable?  Beginning 1939 the Great Terror is over --- the Soviet Union back to is normal, less bloody mode of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, exercised by the supreme Leader Stalin stalin and Bukharin Stalin, Rykov, Zinoviev and Bukharin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-hx9CeQVo, (Stalin cult, purges) World War II  Rest of the World: Great Depression; rise of fascism; Spanish Civil War  Policy of Appeasement toward Hitler: Munich Agreement of 1938  August 1939, Soviet-Nazi (Molotov-Ribbentrop) Non-agression Pact  September 1, 1939, Hitler invades Poland --- WW II starts September 17, 1939, Russia invades Eastern Poland  November 30, 1939, Russia attacks Finland March 1940, end of the Winter War; Finland losing 11% of its territory (30% of its economy)  Summer 1940, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia invaded by Red Army, annexed to the Soviet Union Soviet Russia now ruling over all the territory of Imperial Russia, except Western Poland and (most) Finland  September 1939 – May 1940, “Phony War” in the West June 1940, fall of France July – September 1940 , Battle of Britain, the Blitz  June 22, 1941, Germany attacks the Soviet Union Major German victories: Kiev captured Sep. 19, millions of Russian POWs taken by November 1941 Germans close to Moscow  Stalin remains in Moscow; Russian counter-offensive Great Patriotic War  August 1942 – February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad altogether 2.2 million personnel killed wounded or taken prisoner whole Geman 6th Army destroyed --- decisive turning point  Dec. 1943, Kiev liberated Oct. 1944, Red Army on the territory of Nazi Germany April 16, 1945, Battle of Berlin starts April 30 1945, Hitler commits suicide  Horrendous costs: over 26 million lives (incl. 7-15 million civilian; cf. 300,000 American, 400,000 British); material losses - incalcualble https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgzrI1okwrQ (Fall of Berlin) Cold War, DE-STALINIZATION

 Post-WW2 Soviet Empire: Soviet Union (encompassing territories of Imperial Russia sans Finland) satellites Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania special case of “non-aligned” Yugoslavia  Break-up of the WW2 Alliance Cold War, bipolar world: two superpowers --- USA and USSR , balance of terror  Hopes that pre-war Stalinist policies would not continue dashed Purges and show trials in Eastern Europe  In Russia, 1.5 million of returning POWs sent to the Gulag (its population reaching 2.5 million) 1952-53, antisemitic campaign --- the Doctors’ Plot  March 5, 1952, Stalin dies Succession struggle won by N. Khruschev Dec. 1953, Execution of L. Beria  Gradual de-Stalinization July 1953, Korean War armistice 1955, Soviet Army leaves Austria Gulag prisoners starting to be released Nikita S. Khrushchev Lavrenti P. Beria (1894-1971) (1899-1953)  Feb. 1956, 20th Party Congress: Khrushchev denounces Stalin’s personality cult and crimes  October 1956, Polish events October-November 1956, Hungarian Uprising  October 1961, 22nd Party Congress, Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization completed  1964, Khrushchev deposed New Party leader Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) Under Brezhnev:

 August 1968: “Prague Spring” crushed by military invasion  Early 1970s, détente treaties negotiated with R. Nixon  1976, the Helsinki Accord  1980-81 Solidarity Movement in Poland  By Brezhnev’s death in in 1983, Stagnation  “Gerontocracy” interregnum 1983-1985 Gorbachev, Collapse of the Soviet Union  1985, Mikhail Gorbachev General Secretary of the Party Glasnost, Perestroika  Gates open to a process that the Party starts to lose control Meetings, rallies, demonstrations --- atmosphere like 1917  1987, Boris Yeltsin resigns from the Politburo Even Gorbachev moving from a Leninist position  Collapse starts in outer reaches of the Soviet Empire September 1989, non-Communist-led government in Poland Hungary opens its borders with Austria to fleeing East Germans November 17, the Velvet Revolution starts in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel Christmas Day 1989, N. Ceausescu and his wife executed in Romania  Ethnically non-Russian Soviet Republics start to demand sovereignty Gorbachev proposes a new union treaty for the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics Referendum of March 17, 1991 boycotted by Georgia, Armenia, Moldavia and 3 Baltic states August 1991, a draft treaty approved by remainig 9 republics Mikhail Gorbachev (1931 -)

 August 1991, Party hardliners attempt a coup , Committee of the State of Emergency Gorbachev under house arrest  Yeltsin, by then the president of the Russian Republic, organizes resistance in Moscow  The coup collapses Gorbachev return to Moscow, but his influence greatly reduced  August 23, 1991, Yeltsin suspends the Communist Party Gorbachev resigns shortly as General Secretary of the CP Dec. 1, Ukrainian referendum vote for a full independence  Leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Republics announce dissolution of the USSR  December 31, 1991, the Soviet Union ceases to exist Post-Communist Russia, Yeltsin, Putin  Failure to reform a totalitarian state, as other pre-WW1 empires, the Soviet Union collapsed The post-WW2 division of Europe peacefully over  But in Russia, no successful replacement of elites, emergence of billionaire oligarchs Yeltsin days marked by corruption, chaos, deprivation Unfulfilled hopes followed by disillusionment  December 31, 1999 Yeltsin resigns  Successor Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin’s Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin (1952 -)  Russia ready for authoritarian leadership  Putin’s goals: Russia to be a Great Power again No return to Communist ideology or economy, but use of the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.  In 2000-2008, commodity boom, Russian economy grows Putin’s popularity grows too (now approval rating over 80%)  Media under state control, opponents persecuted Reliance on close circle of billionaire oligarchs  Brutal crushing of secessionists in Chechnya Efforts to secure the “Near Abroad” into a sphere of influence”  Specter of NATO encirclement a rallying point Georgia 2008 Ukraine 2014 – annexation of Crimea  Sanctions, rising tensions with the West  Post-Cold-War period of harmonious East-West cooperation over for now

 Orlando Figes, Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 (Metropolitan Books, New York, 2014)