Unit X: Russian Civil War Study Guide

IB Syllabus Goals: • Bolshevik government, civil war and consolidation of Soviet Power • War communism, new economic policy

Study Questions: 1. What action did Lenin take with respect to the war? Why did he accept the Brest-Litovsk treaty? 2. In what sense was war communism a “mixture of principle and expediency”? How did these policies lead to trouble with the peasants? 3. Which groups were resisting the new regime in the civil war that broke out? What role did the Allied governments play? What factors helped the Bolsheviks to triumph? 4. How might the terror of Russia be compared with the Terror of the French Revolution? What were the net results of the Terror and of the civil war? 5. Explain the background, nature, and results of the New Economic Policy.

Quotes: To what extent do you agree with the following quotes? “ By the peace of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, the Bolsheviks abandoned the Russian conquests of two centuries.” “The anti-Communist Russians represented every hue of the political spectrum.” “The Bolsheviks won the civil war because the answered the question of nationalities correctly.”

Identification: Know each term and its importance Reds Whites Trotsky Allied Intervention war communism Red Terror NEP communists Cheka Kronstadt revolt Cossacks Greens Fanny Kaplan Chek Legion kulak Bukharin Lenin Stalin Kamenev Zinoviev Kolchak Denikin Wrangel treaty of Brest-Litovsk Council of People’s Commissar ** Map of Russia