One of Lenin’s decrees – Land Decree.
Lenin announced it during the all-night session of Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets on 26-27th October 1917.
Land owned by landlords and the Church was to be confiscated without compensation and handed over to village Soviets for the time being.
Final arrangements would be made by the Constituent Assembly. It was understood that land would be re-distributed among the peasants. Official Bolsheviks’ policy was for land taken by a state to be nationalised.
Russian peasants preferred SRs who also promised them land and saw them as a bad bone(?) of the nation.
Lenin knew he would have to allow elections. He was afraid that Bolsheviks would lose the elections. Kerensky had arranged them for mid-November, and they went ahead as planned.
The election was the most democratic and free one that Russia had ever seen. Everybody aged 20 and over, both men and women, was allowed to vote. The election proved to be the last free one until 1993. Lenin’s fears were justified.
- The Bolsheviks won 175 seats out of about 700
- SRs won 370 seats
- Kadets (constitutional Democrats) 17 seats
- Mensheviks – 16 seats
Bolsheviks came second in the elections. Under a democratic system, SRs who had over all majority would have been to form a government with their leader as Prime Minister.
Viktor Chernov – leader of SRs.
However, Lenin decided to ignore the results and get rid of Constituent Assembly by force.
At the first meeting of CA, on 6th January 1918 it was dispersed (?) by Bolsheviks Red Guards.
2 days later, on 8th January 1918, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened.
Bolsheviks had a majority in this assembly. The Congress recognised the Council of People’s Commissars, as a legitimate government and announced that Russia was to be known as the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Most of the actions took place in Petrograd.
The main SRs’ supporters – peasants, were getting what they most wanted. It was the redistribution of the local Soviets.
Peasants seemed not to care if government in distant Petrograd was the constituent or not. Intelligentsia had very small military force. Bolsheviks were determined to retake their power. This required crashing the opponents.
Lenin regarded terror as an absolutely vital element of revolutionary government and was prepared to use the violence.
In December 1917 the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage was founded by the Bolsheviks. It was generally known as CHEKA.
CHEKA helped to stabilise Lenin’s dictatorship by fighting real alleged (?). It was modelled on the tsarist Okhrana and it imitated Okhrana’s methods.
Leader of CHEKA – Feliks Dzerzhinsky
The imperial family being kept under guard in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, were the most famous notion of CHEKA. Tsar and his family were shot by members of that organisation.
CHEKA included the formal nobility, the bourgeoisie and the clergy.
1st Lenin’s decree – Peace Decree.
announced on 26-27th October
negotiations for peace were to begin immediately
Provisional Government’s continuation of the war had been a major reason for its collapse.
Only 2 weeks after Bolsheviks seized power, all Russian troops on the fronts were ordered to cease fire. Germans welcomed this move.
Peace talks opened at German’s military headquarters in Brest-Litovsk.
head of Russian delegation – Leon Trotsky
during negotiations, Bolsheviks faced 2 different dilemmas:
1. Although they wanted to bring Russia to sth like peace and normality, there had still been no successful revolutions in other parts of Europe. Lenin thought these were vital to the survival of his regime. In his opinion they were less likely to happen if peace was restored. Their tactics – to prolong [=postpone] the peace talks in the hope that Revolutions would break out in the states of Central Europe.
2. By Germans’ attitude to peace talks. They needed the weak Russia on their Eastern frontier. The best way was to annex Russian Western Provinces, directly or have them set up as small independent states which Germany could dominate.
Austria-Hungary demanded a part of Ukraine.
An armistice between Russia and Central Powers had been agreed in December 1917. Long negotiations followed.
When by early 1918 the peace treaty wasn’t signed, Germans launched a new offensive on an Eastern Front.
There was no Russian resistance.
Germans were advancing on Petrograd and covered extremely large Russian territory. Lenin was afraid that Germans were intending to capture capital, and overthrow Bolsheviks. Germans had decided not to capture Petrograd.
They thought Russians would be weaker under Bolsheviks.
Lenin wanted to accept Germans’ harsh terms, immediately. Peace was desperately needed. So that Bolsheviks could consolidate their power.
Lenin seemed to believe that Russia would regain all lost territory.
TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK
- was concluded on the 3rd March 1918
- between Central Powers and Soviet Russia
- its terms were national disaster. Russia lost the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, the Ukraine and Georgia. This included a 1/3 of Russia’s farming land, 1/3 of its population, 2/3 of its coalmines and half of its heavy industry
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