What changed after October? - Concepts - Chapter 2 Class 9 History - Socialism in Europe & Russian Revolution - History

• The Bolsheviks were opposed to private property . 
• In November 1917 , the majority of businesses and banks were nationalised . This meant that the government took over ownership and management . 
• The land was designated as social property , and nobility-owned land may be seized by peasants .
• In cities, the Bolsheviks enforced the partition of large houses according to family requirements . 
• They outlawed the usage of former aristocratic titles .
• Following a clothing competition held in 1918 , where the Soviet cap (budeonovka) was chosen , new uniforms for the troops and authorities were created to signify the transition .

• The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) . 
• In November 1917 , the Bolsheviks conducted the elections to the Constituent Assembly , but they failed to gain majority support .
• The Bolshevik measures were rejected by the Assembly in January 1918 , and Lenin then dismissed them .
• He believed that the All Russian Congress of Soviets was a more democratic body than an assembly chosen under questionable circumstances .
• In March 1918 , despite opposition from their political allies , the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk .
• In the years that followed, Russia became a one-party state and the Bolsheviks became the only party to participate in the elections to the All Russian Congress of Soviets , which became the Parliament of the country . 
• Trade unions were kept under party control . 
• Those who criticised the Bolsheviks were persecuted by the secret police , originally known as the Cheka and thereafter the OGPU and NKVD.  
• Many young writers and artists rallied to the Party because it stood for socialism and change.
• After October 1917 , this led to experiments in the arts and architecture .
• But many became disillusioned because of the censorship the party encouraged .

The Civil War

• The Bolsheviks' decree to redistribute land caused the Russian army to disintegrate . Many peasant soldiers wanted to return home during the redistribution and thus deserted .
• Socialists, liberals, and pro-autocracy activists who were not Bolsheviks denounced the insurrection .
• Their leaders moved to south Russia to fight the Bolsheviks and organised troops (the ‘ reds ’ ).
• The majority of the Russian empire was governed by " greens " ( Socialist Revolutionaries ) and " whites " ( pro-Tsarists ) in 1918 and 1919 .
• They were backed by all those forces who were worried about the growth of socialism in Russia like French, American, British and Japanese troops .
• Looting , banditry , and hunger became frequent throughout the civil war between these forces and the Bolsheviks .
• People who supported private property among the " whites " were harsh with peasants who had taken over land .
• These activities caused the non-Bolsheviks to lose popularity with the general public.
• The majority of the old Russian empire was under the Bolsheviks' authority in January 1920 .
• They succeeded due to cooperation with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim jadidists .  
• Where Russian colonists themselves became Bolsheviks , cooperation failed .
• Bolshevik colonists brutally massacred local nationalists in Khiva , in Central Asia in the name of defending socialism.
• Many people in this situation didn't know what the Bolshevik government stood for .
• Partly to remedy this, most non-Russian nationalities were given political autonomy in the Soviet Union (USSR) – the state the Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire in December 1922 .
• However, attempts to win over various nationalities were only partially successful because this was coupled with unpopular policies that the Bolsheviks pushed the local authority to adopt , notably the harsh discouragement of nomadism .

Making a Socialist Society

• The Bolsheviks maintained the nationalisation of banks and businesses throughout the civil war .
• They gave peasants permission to farm the socialised land .
• The Bolsheviks utilised confiscated land to show what cooperative labour could be.

• A process of centralised planning was introduced. Officials assessed how the economy could work and set targets for five years .
• They created the Five Year Plans on the basis of this.
• The government fixed all prices to promote industrial growth during the first two ‘Plans’ (1927-1932 and 1933-1938).
• Centralised planning led to economic growth . 
• Commercial production rose (between 1929 and 1933 by 100 per cent in the case of oil, coal and steel ).
• New factory cities came into being.
• However, rapid construction led to poor working conditions . 

• The development of a steel plant took three years in the city of Magnitogorsk .
• Workers lived hard lives and the result was 550 stoppages of work in the first year alone . 
• In living quarters, ‘in the wintertime , at 40 degrees below , people had to climb down from the fourth floor and dash across the street to go to the toilet’ . 

• The educational system was expanded , and plans were established to allow manufacturing employees and peasants to enrol in universities .
• Crèches was established in factories for the children of women workers . 
• Cheap public health care was provided.

• Worker housing was designed as an example.
• However, because there were only so many resources available to the government , the impact was uneven .

Stalinism and Collectivisation

• The period of the early Planned Economy were linked to the disasters of the collectivisation of agriculture .
• By 1927- 1928 , the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an acute problem with grain supplies .
• Prices of grains were set by the government , but peasants refused to sell their grain to government buyers at those prices .
• After Lenin's death , Stalin took over as party leader and implemented strict emergency measures.
• He believed that in the hope of higher prices, rich peasants and traders in the countryside were holding stocks . 
• Speculation had to be stopped and supplies confiscated .
• As they patrolled the grain - producing regions in 1928 , Party members conducted forced grain collections and raids on " kulaks ," or wealthy peasants .
• As supplies become scarcer , it was decided to collectivise farms .
• It was argued that grain shortages were partly due to the small size of holdings . 
• After 1917 , the land had been given over to peasants and these small-sized peasant farms could not be modernised .
• To develop modern farms , and run them along industrial lines with machinery , it was necessary to ‘ eliminate kulaks ’ , take away land from peasants , and establish state-controlled large farms .
• What followed was Stalin’s collectivisation programme .

• The Party made all peasants work in collective farms starting in 1929 . ( kolkhoz ).
• The bulk of land and implements were transferred to the ownership of collective farms . 
• Peasants worked on the land , and the kolkhoz profit was shared . 
• Peasants who were furious with the rulers rebelled and destroyed their animals .
• Between 1929 and 1931 , the number of cattle fell by one-third . Those who resisted collectivisation were severely punished . 
• Many were deported and exiled . 
• Peasants stated that they weren't rich and weren't opposed to socialism as they rejected collectivization .
• For a number of reasons , they merely did not want to labour in collective farms .
• Stalin’s government allowed some independent cultivation but treated such cultivators unsympathetically .
• Despite collectivisation, production did not increase immediately.
• The bad harvests of 1930-1933 led to one of the most devastating famines in Soviet history when over 4 million died .

• Many Party members criticised the collectivization's effects and the chaos in industrial production under the Planned Economy .
• These critics were charged with conspiring against socialism by Stalin and his supporters .
• There were accusations made all over the nation , and by 1939 , there were over 2 million people in jails or work camps .
• No one spoke for the majority of those who were not guilty of the crimes .
• Many of them were accomplished professionals who were compelled to make false confessions while being tortured and then executed .