Vladimir Lenin; pbs. Vladimir Lenin ; BBC. Secret Police; Library of Congress. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin was born in in St. Petersburg then known as Leningrad. Putin rose to the top ranks of the Russian government after joining Some of his co-conspirators begged for clemency and Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own The Romanov family was the last imperial dynasty to rule Russia.
During the Russian Revolution Since its start a century ago, Communism, a political and economic ideology that calls for a classless, government-controlled society in which everything is shared equally, has seen a series of surges—and declines. What started in Russia, became a global revolution, taking The question of where Russia begins and ends—and who constitutes the Russian people—has preoccupied Russian thinkers for centuries.
The Russian Revolution of was one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century. The violent revolution marked the end of the Romanov dynasty and centuries of Russian Imperial rule.
During the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks, led by leftist From early Mongol invasions to tsarist regimes to ages of enlightenment and industrialization to revolutions and wars, Russia is known not just for its political rises of world power and upheaval, but for its cultural contributions think ballet, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, caviar and Live TV.
This Day In History. History Vault. Who Was Vladimir Lenin? Recommended for you. First, imperialism exploits the developing countries which leads concurrently to the development of capitalism in the dependent host countries and improvements to living standards of the workers in the dominant home countries. Consequently, the working classes in the advanced countries support their governments in their claims for colonies and areas of influence. Second, the class struggle had to be understood in an international perspective.
Exploitation on a world scale transcends national boundaries. The collapse of the world system of capitalism would snap first at its weakest link. Russia was the paradigmatic case. The revolution in Russia would be the spark which would lead to the proletarian revolution in the West. These three factors provided the material foundation for a socialist revolution in Russia. Marx and Engels were principally concerned with the anatomy and dynamics of capitalism.
The political praxis of the move to socialism, the vehicle of change, was undeveloped in their thinking. However, Russia lacked a civil society in which political parties could form and challenge for political power. Lenin called for a centralised party of committed socialist revolutionaries.
In his path breaking pamphlet, What is to be done? The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop trade union consciousness. Lenin here called for the formation of a revolutionary Marxist party to lead the working class. The political conditions in Russia revised traditional Marxism in three ways.
First, the class structure of countries as they moved from feudalism to capitalism differed from the developed capitalist countries: Russia lacked a politically confident domestic capitalist class, the peasantry was differentiated and included layers of labourers and poor peasants who were allied to the working class.
Second, the geographical spread of capitalism in the form of imperialism gave class conflict an international scope though it retained a national focus; its uneven development led to severe contradictions in the semi-peripheral economies. Third, the political conditions in the dependent colonial countries were autocratic and lacked parliamentary forms of participation.
A revolutionary party was required and it should be organised and composed only of socialists supporting a course of revolutionary action initially to bring about a democratic republic, to be followed by a socialist revolution. Lenin made a decisive shift in Marxist analysis. In the traditional Marxist prognosis, only at the most advanced stage of capitalism would the contradictions lead to its collapse followed by the transition to a communist mode of production.
For Lenin, capitalism was formed from different interconnected state formations with uneven and hybrid levels of capitalist development. Lenin concluded that world capitalism was most vulnerable at its weakest link or links , not at its most advanced and developed formation. But a new social formation would not spontaneously grow out of capitalism.
Human action in the form of a Marxist political party was necessary to move society on from capitalism to socialism. Lenin shifted attention away from the system contradictions of capitalism to the social class contradictions. What did Lenin get right, and in what respects has history shown his thinking to be wrong or incomplete?
He detected the weakness of the domestic bourgeoisie as a revolutionary force. He fittingly widened the definition of the working class from the proletariat to include all the working population trudyashchiysya in the democratic revolution. The October Revolution led not only to the consolidation of peasant lands but to a considerable growth in the number of middle and poor peasants. The middle peasants had more to lose than their chains. They would not accept a collectivist form of economic coordination and land reform.
In the period of revolutionary consolidation, after , class interests diverged and later led to open conflict between town and country. Synthesise information about the past to develop, sustain and defend an independent line of historical argument, and communicate and present information reliably and accurately in writing and verbally. For some tips on how to improve your extended writing skills visit this link: www. The officer core of the army, the White Guard, was made up of monarchists.
It was supported by representatives of many other political movements: democrats, social revolutionaries, and others who opposed the Russian Revolution. Civil war broke out immediately after Lenin took over government. The White Army was opposed to the rule of the Tsar and to communism, and wanted a democracy, but the Red Army was victorious. Members were carefully placed to control large industries and cities such as Moscow and Petrograd.
The White Army suffered from a lack of discipline and corruption in the ranks. By , the Communist Party had secured its power and crushed resistance. However, the Russian economy was in tatters. Lenin survived the civil war because his party placed political representatives of the communist party in each army unit to avoid mutiny. This led to the introduction of 'War Communism', as a measure to achieve economic stability. The civil war caused shortages of food, fuel, raw materials for manufacturing and labour.
Workers also left the cities to grow their food on farms in the countryside, shrinking the labour force. Faced with an economic crisis, the communist government in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic USSR introduced War Communism in an effort to take charge of the economy, and to establish a structured socialist economy.
Nationalisation: The transfer of land and equipment from private ownership to government ownership. The Red Army and industrial workers were fed with food confiscated from capitalists. Major industries, businesses employing more than 10 people, and all banks and communication companies were nationalised to provide employment for the Red Army.
All private trade was banned, strikes were declared illegal and workers were strictly controlled. War communism did not help to solve the Russian economic crisis. Instead trade came to a halt. The government was blamed for the worsening situation and opposition to its economic policies grew. War communism was especially unpopular among peasant farmers and overwhelming opposition to Lenin's economic policy forced him to change it.
Lenin wanted to regain the trust of the peasants and established the New Economic Policy. Farmers were now allowed to sell their additional products on the open market, but land still remained the property of the state. All the products were taxed and the state determined all prices. Agricultural production increased, and to mirror this growth in industry workplace incentives and bonuses were introduced.
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