The Russian Revolution

Lenin in hiding

Bolsheviks plan their own Congress of Soviets

Bolsheviks take over Soviet’s Military-Revolutionary Committee

the critical decision of October 10

Milrevkom initiates coup d’état

Kerensky reacts

Bolsheviks declare Provisional Government overthrown

the Second Congress of Soviets ratifies passage of power and passes laws on peace and land

Bolshevik coup in Moscow

few aware of what had transpired

12    Building the One-Party State

Lenin’s strategy after power seizure

Lenin and Trotsky rid themselves of accountability to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet

strike of white collar employees

the Council of People’s Commissars

accord with Left SRs and the breakup of the Peasant Congress

elections to the Constituent Assembly

decision to be rid of it

the dissolution of the Assembly

effects and implications

movement of Worker Plenipotentiaries

13    Brest-Litovsk

Bolsheviks and traditional diplomacy

German and Bolshevik approaches to talks

divisions in the Bolshevik command

initial negotiations

Trotsky at Brest

bitter divisions among Bolsheviks and the German ultimatum

Germans decide to be firm

they advance into Soviet Russia

Allied efforts to win over Bolsheviks

Moscow requests Allied help

Russians capitulate to German terms

Soviet government moves to Moscow

terms of Brest-Litovsk Treaty

first Allied landings in Russia

American reaction to Bolshevik policies

principles of Bolshevik foreign policy

14    The Revolution Internationalized

Small Western interest in Russian Revolution

foundations of Red Army laid

further talks with Allies

German embassy arrives in Moscow

Soviet embassy in Berlin and its subversive activities

the Czechoslovak rebellion

Bolsheviks adopt military conscription

Czech advances

the Kaiser decides to continue pro-Bolshevik policy

the Left SRs plot uprising

they kill Mirbach

suppression of their rebellion

Savinkovs clandestine organization

the Iaroslavl rising

Riezler fails in attempt to reorient German policy

further Allied activities on Russian soil

Bolsheviks request German intervention

Supplementary Treaty with Germany

Russians decide the Germans have lost the war

the problem of foreign “intervention”

15    “War Communism”

Its origins and objectives

“Left Communists”plan implementation

attempts to abolish money

creation of Supreme Economic Council

decline of industrial productivity

decline of agricultural productivity

efforts to abolish the market and the growth of a shadow economy

anti-labor legislation

trade union policy

effects of War Communism

16    War on the Village

Bolsheviks view peasants as class enemy

what peasants gained in 1917–18 and at what cost