Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Lenin's economic policies
Lenin's economic policies
Communism In Russia,1900-194
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Lenin's economic policies
After the Tsar regime was overthrown in 1917, Russia experienced further discontent as its people carried out revolution and civil war (Modern World History: Russia 1905-41). From these occurrences, Russia then became the first communist state in the world. The Bolsheviks had become the ruling party after taking over the Provisional Government in the revolution of November 1917. Vladimir Lenin had been the leader of this party. There was a bitter civil war between the Communists who were the Reds and the opposition being the Whites. As a final point the Bolsheviks defeated their enemies in the Russian Civil War that lasted for 3 years and ended in 1920.
When the Bolsheviks took over after winning the Civil War they had complete control over Russia (Modern World History: Civil War 1918-21). Russia was still at war against Germany. They had decided to continue the war (Modern World History: Russia 1905-41). Subsequently, Russian armies collapsed because of the poor leadership, insufficient supplies and the political progresses rather than losing on the actual battle field (Modern World History: Russia 1905-41). Due to the complete focus of winning the war Russia as a whole suffered immensely. The people had no food to eat as most of it was taken for the army. There were social issues as peasants claimed land in the countryside and murdered the landowners who refused to give it up. And thus after the growing power of revolutionary groups the Bolsheviks forcibly took their place in government. The Bolshevik party also known as the Communist Party had complete control over the economic state of Russia.
Once in power the Bolsheviks promised ‘Peace, Bread and Land’ (Modern World History: Bolshevik rule). Most of their support came from ...
... middle of paper ...
...hy was that if the peasants had the money as profit of their goods then industry would pick up because their income was spent on buying manufactured goods. Bukharin became one of Lenin’s closest colleagues.
The economic result of the NEP was most beneficial to Russia. The acceptance of The New Economic Policy by the Bolsheviks proved to have been a well calculated, advantageous call. The production rates went up and grew over the years that the NEP existed (refer to index: Table 5.3). There was a recovery and that is what was needed.
In actual fact the statement that Lenin made about the Bolsheviks still having control over the economy was proven to have been substantively true. The NEP had still produced an economic balance. The Russian industry was cultivated by the party but agriculture and trade were privately handled (refer to both figure 5.5 and Table 5.4).
...ap between farmer’s income and industrial prices, as now farmers could not afford industrial equipment, so they therefore had fewer incentives to reproduce grain. The government’s response to this was to subsidise, so the peasant could now afford the machinery, but this then left an economic crisis has this meant they had less money to improve the economy. This indicated to Trotsky that the NEP solved some issue like famine, protests but the New Economic Policy was not capable of industrialising the economy.
The Seizure of Power by the Bolsheviks in 1917. How did the Bolsheviks seize power of the Russian Empire in 1917? They were able to do this as a result of taking advantage of the current political and social situations in the country at the time. Through such decisions as disbanding the army and siding with the majority. the peasants, through such promises as land, food, equality and peace.
For centuries, autocratic and repressive tsarist regimes ruled the country and population under sever economic and social conditions; consequently, during the late 19th century and early 20th century, various movements were staging demonstrations to overthrow the oppressive government. Poor involvement in WWI also added to the rising discontent against Nicholas as Russian armies suffered terrible casualties and defeats because of a lack of food and equipment; in addition, the country was industrially backward compared to countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and the USA. It had failed to modernize, this was to do with the tsars lack of effort for reforms. The country was undergoing tremendous hardships as industrial and agricultural output dropped. Famine and poor morale could be found in all aspects of Russian life. Furthermore, the tsar committed a fatal mistake when he appointed himself supreme commander of the armed forces because he was responsible for the armies constant string of defeats.
The Russian revolution of February 1917 was a momentous event in the course of Russian history. The causes of the revolution were very critical and even today historians debate on what was the primary cause of the revolution. The revolution began in Petrograd as “a workers’ revolt” in response to bread shortages. It removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, replacing Russia’s monarchy with the world’s first Communist state. The revolution opened the door for Russia to fully enter the industrial age. Before 1917, Russia was a mostly agrarian nation. The Russian working class had been for many years fed up with the ways they had to live and work and it was only a matter of time before they had to take a stand. Peasants worked many hours for low wages and no land, which caused many families to lose their lives. Some would argue that World War I led to the intense downfall of Russia, while others believe that the main cause was the peasant unrest because of harsh living conditions. Although World War I cost Russia many resources and much land, the primary cause of the Russian Revolution was the peasant unrest due to living conditions because even before the war began in Russia there were outbreaks from peasants due to the lack of food and land that were only going to get worse with time.
In 1905 , Russia had a prerevolution that was put down of the Czar. Instead of learning from this prerevolution, Czar Nicholas II, made a very big mistake by in not introducing some reforms to correct the problems. So because of his actions, the situation grew worse. In 1917, the Russians were fighting in World War I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent along with economic hardships caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards. A temporary government was set up to decide on what kind of government Russia was gonna set up. Two political parties were set up. The Bolsheviks were one of the two. The leader of the Bolshevik party was a man named Lenin. Lenin was a firm believer of the theories and ideas of Karl Marx. So with his slogan of "Bread, Peace and Land", Lenin gained the support of the peasants and gained control of Russia and setup a communist state.
The Similarities of Tsarist and Communist Rule in Russia Both forms of government did depend on high degree of central control. However, some Tsars and Stalin exerted more central controls than others. Stalin’s stronger use of central control created differences between the two forms of government. The Tsars used different levels of central control.
The goal was to combine Asian and European workers with Russian labour unions in one large class of social structure ownership, thus alluding to an oligarchy reign which seemed to overtake the will of the people, Bolsheviks party held the majority in political stances to circumvent
The Russian Revolution (1917) was a series of economic and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party.
Lenin’s pragmatic leadership was the most considerable factor in helping to fortify Bolshevik power. His willingness to take power in October/November 1917 and the successes of the move, through his right-hand man, Trotsky, was critical as it helped give him unquestioned authority within the party despite members of the Central Committee i.e. Zinoviev and Kamenev who suggested industrialisation needed to occur first. This highlighted Lenin’s communist ideology in practice which was essential to the Bolsheviks maintaining power. Following the failure of the Provisional Government, Lenin recognised that it was the Bolshevik’s priority to legitimise their government. As a result, issues of ‘Peace, Bread and Land’ were addressed through the issuing of a number of decrees in late 1917 including decrees on land, peace, Workers’ Rights as well as reforms to marriage and religion. ...
Throughout the time of the Revolution there was never just one individual revolution. There was a series of revolutions that were set in Russia in 1917. Some were crushed in the making and had no result but, others ended up being made a very big deal. These sequences of revolutions ended up dismantling the Tsarist autocracy which also resulted in the creation of the “Russian SFSR”. As a result of these revolutions “the emperor was forced to resign from his post and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution.”2
In February of 1917 a group of female factory workers and led a revolt in which the Tsar was dethroned, only to be replaced by a provisionary government composed of the Russian elite. When this government did not live up to its promises of an end to Russian involvement in World War I, the Bolsheviks (“majority”), a revolutionary movement led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the provisionary government in what bacame known as the October revolution.
There were many events that lead up to the Bolshevik Revolution. First off, in 1848, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels published a thought-provoking book. The Communist Manifesto expressed their support of a world in which there was no difference in class. A world in which the workers and commoners ran the show and there was no high and supreme ruler. Many intellectual Russians began to become aware of this pamphlet as well as the advanced state of the world compared to Russia. Other countries were going through an industrial revolution, while the Czars had made it clear that no industrial surge was about to happen in Russia. The popularity of the Czars further went down hill as Nicolas II’s poor military and political decisions caused mass losses in World War I. Eventually, the citizens could take no more and began a riot in St. Petersburg that led to the first Russian Revolution of 1917.
middle of paper ... ... Exploring the October revolution and the establishment of communism, Richard Pipes concludes that the origin of communism can be traced back to the distant past of Russia’s history. Pipes states that Russia had entered a period of crisis after the governments of the 19th century undertook a limited attempt at capitalisation, not trying to change the underlying patrimonial structures of Russian society. (Pipes, 1964) An unrelenting series of war’s, unnecessary hunger and famine and the selfish greed of the ruling elite.
As communication was poor to the rural areas of Russia, the peasants had little or no knowledge of political parties and so did not support the Bolsheviks in their takeover. When the Bolsheviks changed to the Communist party in 1918, many peasants believed these to be a new party challenging Bolshevism and so made banners saying ’Down with the Communists, Long live the Bolsheviks!’ The national minorities currently part of the Russian empire, predominately Finland and Poland, were demanding independence and Russia’s allies, Britain, France, USA, Japan, etc. were growing ever suspicious of Bolshevism and so were set to intervene if the Bolsheviks were to pull out of World War 1.