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Frankie Henderson

Dr. James “Pigeon” Fielder

POLS 347 Comparative Authoritarianism

28 September 2021

Country Dossier 1, USSR

Introduction: Fun Facts (that you likely already know, because sir, if ANYONE were

going to know about the recreational pigeon-keeping habits of historical soviets, it would, most

definitely, be you.): Pigeons were on USSR matchbox labels and postage stamps. This is because

pigeons and pigeon keeping was extremely popular in the USSR. There were pigeon owning

clubs, dovebotes lined the streets, and people recreationally went pigeon watching. … And now,

after that shamelessly pandering introduction to my paper, my thesis….

Thesis: This paper will recount the history of the emergence of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union from the first Russian Revolution up until after the death of Vladimir Lenin . It

will go over Russia’s background prior to 1900, give a short synopsis of Vladimir Lenin, the

Russian Revolution of 1905, World War I’s impact, the Tsar’s Abdication (February

Revolution), the Bolshevik Revolution ( fall of provisional government), the Russian Civil War,

Lenin’s Decline, and Stalin’s Rise to Power.

Background: The Soviet Union was predated by an autocratic Tsardom of the Russian

Empire ruled by Tsar Nicholas II of the Romanov family. The Romanov family had been ruling

for about 300 years (“Romanov Family”) and in the 1800s, the country was underdeveloped and

impoverished. Russia was still practicing serfdom (which had been eradicated in other parts of

Western Europe since the Middle Ages), and had not modernized in industry or progressed in

human rights; again, something that the rest of Eruope had begun doing a hundred years prior.
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While Tsar Alexander II, Nicholas’s grandfather, known as Alexander the Reformer, technically

abolished serfdom in 1861, the nobles were not willing to give up their free labor so the peasants

were still forbidden from leaving their fields until they paid off massive, and intentionally

impossible, loans to their local land-owners (Prahl) . This meant that the starving, cold, miserable

life of the serfs became the starving, cold, miserable life of the peasants, who longed for

something better. When compared to the western constitutional monarchies, democracies, and

republics and the life quality those governments afforded, the autocratic government of the

Tsardom had its flaws exposed as being outdated and ineffective for ruling a complex empire.

Valdimir Lenin: Stage Directions *Enter Vladimir Lenin* . Vladimir Lenin was a

middle class intellectual (and a grade-A A-hole) who had a strong belief in the teachings of Marx

(Short aside: Marx was a philosopher and economist who wrote a manifesto in 1847 detailing

how capitalism as an economy lends to oppression of the worker, the proletariat, by the owner,

the bourgeoisie. Marx said the proletariats must bond together and overthrow the bourgeoisie in

a class war that would lead to a communist utopia where the means of production would be

shared). Lenin’s expressed positivity for Marx earned him a one way ticket to exile in Siberia,

where he continued to write a secret socialist newspaper. Once he finished his sentence in

Siberia, Lenin immigrated to Germany then Switzerland and continued writing his socialist

newspaper called the Iskra which was smuggled into Russia. He also established connections

with other like-minded Marxists. They created the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

which lasted only a hot minute before Lenin essentially bifurcated the party by refusing to yield

on any issues. The party that Lenin created was called “The Majority” (who ironically, in

numbers, were more often than not in the minority) or “ Bolshevik” while the other sector was
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called “ The Minority” or “Menshevik”. The Bolsheviks were much more radical and

uncompromising.

Russian Revolution 1905 (Russo-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday): Back in Russia, the

peasants weren’t the only ones starving, cold, and miserable. Recognizing that Russia was badly

behind, Tsar Nicholas II’s head advisor and future Prime Minister, Sergei Witte, made

developments in the textile industry and created many factories. But with the factories came the

need for workers and a new class of poor urban workers came into existence. The workers

started to protest the filthy, over-crowded, and dangerous working conditions. Tensions

continued to rise as peasants, factory workers, and liberals all started to rebel against the Tsar’s

rule. In order to bolster his reputation and instill nationalism, Nicholas decided to expand

Russia’s sphere of influence into the far east of China, betting on handily winning the turf war of

Manchuria and Korea against Japan. Russia went to war with Japan, confident that the war

would be quick and easy….and it was quick, the Japanese handed Russia a sound loss in less

than a year in what became known as (the super cleverly-named) Russo-Japanese War. This

further disheartened the people and with ever-worsening conditions, the country hit a breaking

point. This breaking point came to pass when an orthodox priest named Father Gapon led a

peaceful protest to the Winter Palace to deliver a petition to Tsar Nicholas. Fearing the

possibility of assassination, the Tsar fled the pallace, leaving his soldiers there with instructions

to defend the palace. Defend the palace they did, by shooting onto the peaceful protest. The

people were enraged and to avoid being overthrown, Nicholas, at the strong encouragement by

Witte, allowed political liberals to form governmental councils as an accession.

World War I: In 1914, the Russian Empire declared war on Germany, leading to a long,

costly, and high casualty war. One of the reasons that the war was so costly was because of the
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complete mismanagement of the war effort of the ruling Tsar, Nicholas II. Minus the ability to

grow some wicked facial hair, Tsar Nicholas II was otherwise absolutely incompetant and in the

first year of the war, Russia suffered tremendous casualties. He blundered the delivery of food

rations, weapons, ammunition, and equipment. The war was a drain on the country’s resources

and peasants and factory workers were starving now more than they had been before. In

Nicholas’s absence, he left his wife, Tsarina Alexandra, unpopular and ethnically German (not a

great look) to manage domestic affairs. At the coaching of her controversial advisor, a drunken

peasant and proclaimed mystic “holy man” Grigory Rasputin, she began firing elected officials

(really not a great look). Mutinies erupted and discontent swept through the country coupled with

people’s discontent.

Tsar’s Abdication (February Revolution): This led to riots. The most notable riot took

place on International Women’s Day March 18, 1917 where thousands of women in Petrograd

(the new name of the city of St. Petersburg but St. Petersburg sounded “too german”), protested

in the street. Although it took place in March, this is called the February Revolution because

Russia was still using the Julian calendar. Normally, soldiers would disperse these riots,

however, the soldiers were also fed up and hungry so many of them turned on their officers, and

therefore, the czar. Liberal politicians didn’t join the riots on the streets but did support them due

to their dissatisfaction with Czar Nicholas cancelling their Dumas everytime he disagreed with

them, violating their agreement. News of the riots reached Nicholas on the front lines but on his

way back to quell the chaos, his train was intercepted by unhappy government officials. Tsar

Nicholas II was forced to abdicated the throne and while technically he abdicated to his brother,

his brother did not accept the throne and 300 years of Romanov rule came to a halt. A
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provisional 2 party government then emerged from 1) the former liberals of the Dumas and 2)

the worker’s Soviets. This provisional government took temporary control over the country.

Bolshevik Revolution ( Fall of Provisional Government): Coming onto the scene from

Switzerland via Germany (Germany hoping to cause enough damage in Russia that Russia would

become weakened and lose the ongoing World War) was Vladimir Lenin who seized the

opportunity of chaos to try and overthrow the newly established government. He surmised that

without elected legitimacy, the provisional government would be easy to oust in an election that

he and his party of the Boshiviks held. The provisional government already had their own

elections scheduled to be held in November of 1917, so Lenin disrupted the election process of

the provisional government’s election in order to hold his own elections, hoping to gain

legitimacy for the Bolsiviks. They ran under the popular slogan of “Peace, Bread, Land”, which

appealed to war-weary, starving, landless people. This plan backfired though, when in his own

election, Lenin and the Boshiviks lost to the provisional government. Lenin then ignored these

results and took the country by force.

Russian Civil War (1917-1923, Red Terror, White Army, Romanov Execution):

Angered by this coup, the fact that Trotsky (Lenin’s right hand man) effectively ceded a huge

portion of Russia to Germany with his “No War, No Peace” strategy, and Lenin cracking down

on his political opposition using a newly instilled secret police, disgruntled nationalists, army

officers and cossacks, provisional government supporters, socialists, social democrats,

capitalists, and supporters of putting the Tsar back in power ( at least until March of 1918 when

the Bolsheviks had Nicholas and his family killed) banded together to form the “White Army”.

The only thing that the “White Army” really had in common was the fact that they hated the

Bolsheviks, even in their name, “White”, the primary cohesiveness was shown in opposition to
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the “Reds”. Although the White Army was backed by Great Britain, France, the U.S. and Japan,

they still lost due to the military genius of Trotsky (this time his plans actually worked),the

dispersion of resources due to the Bolshivik’s controlled the industrial center of Russia, and the

fact that the loose alliance of the White Army was horribly disorganized. After winning, the

Bolsheviks were so paranoid about revolutions against them that the secret police executed tens

of thousands of people suspected of political treason.

Lenin’s Decline: Russia was in a worse state than it had ever been before. The economy

had been wrecked by a massive famine (where another 5 million people starved to death),

inflation made the ruble almost worthless, disease had killed an additional 3 million people, and

a large portion of the country’s infrastructure had been destroyed. Lenin was living under the

constant fear of political revolution against him or else another assassination attempt and the

stress began to get to him. He suffered from two strokes in 1922 and his health declined rapidly.

Stalin’s Rise to Power: Russia transitioned to the Soviet Union on December 30, 1922

with the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR (which was supposed to be Lenin’s

“Communist Utopia”) with a one party system. As Lenin became more and more unable to lead

the country, everyone assumed that Trotsky would naturally take his place: he was a logistics

genius, an intellectual public speaker, and had long ties in the party. However, plot twist: the

dark horse of Joseph Stalin ended up taking over the country. After the Revolution, Stalin

returned from Siberia and was given the job of being the party’s secretary. This meant that Stalin

had the power to assign jobs within the new Communist party, which he did good-ol-boy style,

rewarding jobs to his friends that were loyal to him. Lenin disliked Stalin and did not want him

succeeding him as leader of the party. However, once Lenin died, Stalin had too much

momentum behind him to be stopped. He killed off his political adversaries (including
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assassinating Trotsky in 1940), further strengthened the secret police, and rapidly militarized the

USSR into the global superpower of the Cold War.

Works Cited

“Casualties of World War I.” Facing History and Ourselves,

https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/politics/casualties-

world-war-i-country-politics-world-war-i.
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History.com Editors. “Soviet Union.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 1 Sept.

2017, https://www.history.com/topics/russia/history-of-the-soviet-union.

“Killed, Wounded, and Missing.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica,

Inc., https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I/Killed-wounded-and-missing.

“Russia Profile - Timeline.” BBC News, BBC, 26 Apr. 2019,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17840446.

“The Russian Revolution.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,

https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/The-Russian-Revolution.

“Soviet Union Timeline.” BBC News, BBC, 31 Oct. 2013,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17858981.

“History Milestone: The October Revolution in Russia.” Origins,

https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/november-2017-october-revolution-russia.

Fernholz, Elizabeth M. The Russian Revolution of 1917,

https://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/russian-rev.htm.

Prahl, Amanda. “Biography of Alexander II, Russia's Reformist Tsar.” ThoughtCo,

ThoughtCo, 19 Sept. 2018, https://www.thoughtco.com/alexander-ii-biography-4174256.