Russian Civil War and the Rise of Stalin

Brest-Litovsk Peace

Germans were advancing in Russia and they signed the Brest Litovsk Treaty, so Russia left WW1, having accepted German conditions. A civil war started in Russia because people saw communists as danger.

Civil War

• Whites were anti-communists.

• Reds were communists.

Great Britain, France and US helped the Whites to stop communism. Red forces were united while White forces were not. That made difficult the coordination of their attacks. When the red Army defeated their enemies in Russia, they went to Poland to spread communism, but Poland defeated them. Tsar and his family were executed

War communism and mutiny

• War communism was a system established by the Reds to win the War. They had power over the people and they use violence in case of refuse.

• Other controls: Cheka secret police to execute people against the state. People from 16-60 were forced to work.

• People who were unhappy demanded justice, free elections for the soviets and free trade unions

• Trotsky ordered the red army to end that mutiny by killing and kidnapping people

• Lenin changed communist policy, he introduced new economic policy to restore order and make more improvements

New Economic Policy=NEP

Nep was created to reverse communism. Thanks to it, economic recovery happened USSR constitution was established, all had to be communist.

1924= Lenin died

The struggle of power 1924-28

-Trotsky was the most popular and most likely to get the Lenin's place.

-Zinoviev and Kamenev, left-winged.

-Stalin, not popular, General Secretary of the Party.

Stalin managed to destroy the lefties and the righties. Trotsky defended revolution to expand, Stalin wanted peace. Trotsky was thrown from the Party.

Zinoviev and Kamenev supported Stalin and were against Trotsky. Stalin was agree with the NEP. Zinoviev and Kamenev were dismissed from the Politburo because they supported fast-controlled modernisation. They agreed with Trotsky against Stalin and were exiled. Then, Stalin started being from the left supporting the modernisation so that he could throw out people such as Bukharin and Rycob.