Stalins road to

power and his

Russia

Russia 1917

• Chaos in Russian army under the command of

Tsar

• February 1917 – Tsar abdicates
• Provisional government: (Russia still fights)

– Giorgi Lvov
– Alexand Kierensky

• Germans send Lenin from Switzerland to

Russia to destabilize the situation

• The Soviets: councils of soldiers and workers
• Lenin – „All power in the hands of the Soviets”

October 1917: Revolution begins

• Aurora cruisr fires at the Winter Palace
• Sailor from Kronstad are fighting withe

Provisional Government

• End of democratic Russia
• 3rd March 1918 – Separatist peace treaty

with Germany at Brest-Litvovsk

The formation of the bolshevik

state

• 1917 – formation of the Red Army (Leon Trotsky)
• July 1918 – formation of the Czechoslovakian

corps in Siberia

• Foreign interventions:

– Japanese – Vladivostok
– British – Murmansk, Archagnelsk, French –

Crimean

• War communism:

– Brutal requisitions of crops and seeds (8-10

millions deaths)

– Class strugle philosophy - Biednak,

Serednak, Kulak

• The White Guard:

– Kolchak (Siberia)
– Denikin (Kazan)
– Youdenich (Baltic States)
– Wrangel (Central Russia)

• 1918 – Battle of Kazan
• 3rd August 1918 – Fania Kaplan attempt to

assasinate Lenin

• 1919 – Fights with Poland
• Summer 1920 – End of War
• Peace treaty with Poland (1921, Riga)

• Massive protests of radical left (Kronstad)

– Fiodor Raskolnikov (democrate)
– Revolution in Kronstad (1921)
– Tuchachevsky destroyed the rebels
– Creation of CheKa (Special Commision

against the Counterrevolution and
sabotage) under Felix Dzierzhinsky – Red
Terror

Soviet Union (1921-1939)

• 1922 – Rapallo pact with Weimar Republic
• Starvation after civil war – CHANGE OF POLICY
• NEP (Nowaja Ekonomiczeskaja Polityka) – New

Economic Policy –farmers were allowed to sell
their extra crops on the market (Idea of Lenin)

• Increase of the Political Aparatus members

(zaciąg leninowski)

The Third Revolution

Stalin

• 1922 – Stalin appointed as a GenSec of the Party
• 1922-1924 – Ilness of Lenin
• January 1924 – Death of Lenin
• His testimony, sent to wife (Nadia Krupskaya)
• 1924 – 1929 – Period of collective ruling of the

Soviet Union

• 1929 – 50th birthsday

Stalins vision of the state

• Economy:

– Industrialisation (Transformation into heavy-

industry country) - Charkov, Magnitogorsk,
Donietsk)

– Collectivisation (Transformation of the

countryside into communes)

• Requisitions of grain, Kolchoz, Sowchoz,

Farmers refused to gave their land

• 1931-34’ – The Great Famine
• Stachanovism movement (Aleksiei

Stachanov (300% of the norm)

– 5-years plans (1928-32; 1933-1937; 1938-

1942)

• Totalitarian state:

– Creation of the secret police:

• CheKa (F.Dzierzhinsky)  GPU  OGPU 

NKVD (1934)

• NKVD: (Gienryk Jagoda  Nicolai Ezhov 

Lawrenti Beria)

• Lubianka, Lefortowo and Butyrki

– GULag (Central administration of camps)

• 1929 – Soloviov Isles, Vorkuta, Petchora,

Kolyma

– Show trials, Andrei Wyshynsky – Roland

Freisler of the USSR

Soviet Union of the 30s

• 17th Party Plenum in 1934:

– Leningrad Delegates want to change Stalin

into Sergei Kirov

– Lazar Kaganovich informes Stalin on threat
– Voting is falsified

• Stalin with NKVD made an assasination of

Sergei Kirov in his Leningrad party
headquarters

• Kirow is killed in 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev
• Beginning of the Great Purge (1934-1939)

– 8-14 millions deaths, Jagoda and Ezhov

killed, Tuchachevsky and army generals
killed,

Extra information

• Sergo Ordzhonikidze
• Andrei Zdhanov
• Sergei Eisenstein
• Maxim Gorky

Extra information