Bolsheviks' Consolidationg of Rule

Bolsheviks' Consolidationg of Rule

The Bolsheviks used the Red Army ruthlessly, they were used to strike

fear into those who opposed the Bolsheviks. When the Sailors of

Kronstadt, tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks, Leon Trotsky sent 60,000

red guards and Cheka to crush all those inside. If the Bolsheviks

could not trust the Sailors, the very people who bombed the winter

palace in the original revolution; then they could not trust anyone.

All opposition towards the Bolsheviks were silenced, Lenin used his

red guards, to close down the election assembly, so that no other

party could win the vote and come into power. He did this on the 18th

of January 1918, where the Socialist revolutionaries had gained a

majority.

The Bolsheviks used war communism, to win the war against the Whites,

they decided that to win the war, it is vital to keep the red army fed

and to keep a constant supply of weapons reaching the front. To do

this, the government took control over all large factories, and this

allowed the Vesenkha (supreme council of national economy) to decide

what the factories produce. No private trading was allowed, the

government would take all excess produce and use it to supply the

army. The government would not pay rent; you were not allowed to rent

property. This caused huge inflation, Russia became a trade economy,

which is not what the Bolsheviks wanted, but it was vital to win the

war. Russia was rationed to keep food going to the front, but in 1921

there was terrible weather which caused a famine, the Bolshevik

controlled newspaper even said that over 25 million Russians had died.

The NEP was made to get the Bolsheviks back in the good books of the

people of Russia. Peasants were allowed to sell there surplus,

Peasants who increased their food production would pay less tax,

factories with 20 workers or less would go back to their previous

owners, and money became worth what it used to.

In the treaty of Brest-Litovsk Russia lost 54% of its industrial land