Hriju
Describe the problems faced by Lenins “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”
- Lenin and his supporters had to defend the world’s first “Dictatorship of the Proletariat’’
- Civil War
- Opposition to the Bolshevik Party (Russian Communist) went into civil war from 1918 to 1920.
- Lenin’s government wanted to crush all opposition
- Red Terror Campaign
- Suspected anti communists known as Whites were arrested, tried and executed.
- July 1918, the Bolsheviks executed Nicholas Tsar II and his family.
- Russia’s withdrawal from the Great War and anticommunist sentiment inflamed Russia’s former allies sent troops to aid the White forces
- Whites were defeated by the Red Army in 1920 due to their poor organization and little support
- More people were dying from disease and starvation than the actual war
- War Communism
- As a result of civil war, Russia began an unplanned course of nationalization
- After officially annualing private properties, Bolshevik government controlled banks, industries, and other private commercial properties.
- Landed estates and holding of monasteries and churches became national property.
- By 1920 industrial production had fallen to about 1/10 of its prewar level and agricultural output to about half its prewar level.
- Rebuilding the society which was at war since 1914 was very daunting during 1921 for Lenin
- Workers were on strike
- Cities were depopulated
- Factories were destroyed
- Armies demobilized soldiers
- The New Economic Policy
- Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy (NEP) to show his willingness to compromise
- NEP restored market economy and some private enterprise in Russia
- Many facilities remained under the government’s control, but small-scale industries were returned to private ownership
- Peasants were allowed to sell surpluses at free market prices.
- Vigorous program of electrification and the establishment of technical school
- Lenin died in 1924 before seeing the success of NEP
- His death was followed by bitter struggle for power among the Bolshevik leaders