Chechnya

Lenin’s First step was to sign a peace treaty with Germany to pull Russian troops out of the war. The Bolshevik govern-ment was a dictatorship. Lenin had revolutionary antecedents His older brother, Alexander was plotting to murder Tsar Alexander and was executed leaving Lenin with hate toward the royal (Lerner). Lenin created the very first Communist state and declared Russia a Soviet republic. There were more people getting involved in this revolution, inspired by the Bolsheviks and Len-in’s over all ideas for Russia.

Stalin is to blame for instilling life-threatening terror into the minds of his citizens when forming the NKVD, or his secret police. The camps provided a glimpse of salvation for citizens, but once again this was just an allusion. Following the Russian revolution, Joseph Stalin’s desire to attain power disrupted the lives of Russians. Stalin betrayed his colleagues, robbed his people of the essentials needed to thrive, and created a police force who captured and killed any who disobeyed. The pain and suffering of the people Stalin eradicated will never be restored, for he committed the foulest crime of all, sacrificing human emotions.

Oppression is at the root of all of the problems people faced in those events and books. In World War I, the Russians revolted against their czar and created a communist country. Czar Nicholas II caused some of the most disastrous and bloody wars Russia had ever seen, so the people wanted him out. I learned that they had success because revolutionaries sought after a common goal, the communist manifesto. Although the new communist reign seemed good for a while, eventually certain members of society edged their way to the top of the pyramid, negating the communist manifesto.

The Russian government managed to keep its control of all states apart from Chechnya, which, under the new president Dzhokhar Dudayev, declared independence in October 1991. The Russian Government did not approve this and President Yeltsin declared war against the newborn regime in 1994. Yeltsin feared that if they had not declared war the other Caucasus states may have followed suit, to prevent this they preferred to curb it at the out set. The second Chechen war, which began in September 1999, was a result of the actions taken by Russia in the first war and was a product of the same policies. The fight for independence for Chechnya has been ongoing since the Bolshevik Revolution and is one that will be fought well into the future if something is not done about it now.

Exploring Why Communism Wasn't Defeated in 1918 The Russian civil war began in 1918, in the former Russian empire; the war was between the new communist government, the Bolsheviks, and those who opposed it collectively known as The Whites. Surprisingly, The Whites were defeated by the Reds in late 1920, but the question is why were the communists operating such an unpopular regime able to be victorious and remain in control. The civil war started due to many factors, but the key was the collapse of the former Russian empire in 1917/1918. This disintegration created several territories and after Lenin decreed that any such territories wanting self-determination were free to split from Russia, many independent territories were born. This caused a number of problems, Soviets took control of large areas to pursue their own policies, Volga Tatars and Bashkis set up republics.

Chechens attempted to separate from Russia by establishing an autonomous region in 1922. This region later became the Chechen- Inguish Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1934 (2011). Then Stalin deported Chechens from Chechnya in 1944, because he believed the Chechens collaborated with the Germans (“Chechen Terrorism”). Stalin’s accusation epitomizes Gultung’s definition of cultural violence, as he justified deporting the Chechens with the accusation (Galtung, 1999). The deportations exemplify Burton’s definition of structural violence, a deprivation of needs caused by policies and institutions (Burton, 1997).

These were under Stalin’s orders to send all these members of political parties to their deaths. Stalin’s unjust ways of operating the Soviet Union was detrimental to the advancement of the country itself. Having show trials simply portrays how corrupt Stalin had made the Soviet government just as an intricate plan to keep all the power for himself, to the detriment of the Russian people. One citizen writes, “If you complain or write anything (“Heaven Forbid”), they will frame you or for something else, and they will shoot you like a dog.” Russia under the rule of Stalin was horrible in the way that people were killed for even complaining about Stalin and the horrible lives people lived under Stalin’s iron fist. The forced labor of Russian citizens made Stalin a bad ruler.

Treacherous war conditions and fabrications of the high command devastated the psychological state of the soldiers and forced them into indefensible situations where judgment was compromised. Works Cited Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. New York City: Henry Holt and, 1996. Print.

His son, Nicholas, continued this form of rule. However, under Nicholas I, the citizens had had enough of the conditions they were living in. They revolted. When they revolted, the Bolsheviks came into power. The Bolsheviks executed the czar and his family as well as continuing Russia’s involvement in World War I.

Russian settlers were ordered into the Ukraine to revive valuable farmland and to burry the dead. Russians began to colonize the Ukraine, taking away their native culture and changing the demographic all together. Many to this day are unaware of the severity of the Ukrainian genocide and how the amount of Ukrainians murdered is almost the same amount of people that were killed in the first world war. Until the Ukraine gained their much wanted independence in 1991, it was considered a crime top speak of the horrors of the genocide.