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Y219: Russia 1894–1941

The Civil War and Lenin: the Red Terror, Kronstadt, the NEP and Lenin as leader

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on White loss of peasant support, the murder of the Tsar, the Red Terror, Kronstadt, the New Economic Policy and its success, the organisation of the Soviet state and Lenin’s strengths and weaknesses.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

How was the Soviet state organised under Lenin?

Numbers

What set off the Red Terror and what form did it take?

Key term

What were the main features of the New Economic Policy?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why did the Whites lose the support of the peasantry?

    Model answer

    They were associated with landlords reclaiming estates, with conscription and requisition of their own, and with foreign backers and the restoration of the old order, so peasants who disliked the Bolsheviks still preferred them.

  2. 2

    What happened to the Tsar and his family in July 1918?

    Model answer

    They were shot in the cellar of the house where they were held at Ekaterinburg, on local Bolshevik authority, as White forces closed on the town.

  3. 3

    What set off the Red Terror and what form did it take?

    Model answer

    The assassination of the Petrograd Cheka chief and the shooting and wounding of Lenin in August 1918 were the pretext; the Cheka then executed suspects and hostages in tens of thousands and filled the first labour camps.

  4. 4

    What did the Kronstadt sailors demand in 1921, and why was the rising so alarming to Lenin?

    Model answer

    They demanded free elections to the soviets, freedom of speech and press for socialist parties and an end to grain requisitioning; it was alarming because these had been among the most loyal supporters of 1917, which Lenin called a flash of lightning showing the real situation.

  5. 5

    What were the main features of the New Economic Policy?

    Model answer

    Requisitioning was replaced by a fixed tax in kind, peasants could sell their surplus, small businesses and private trade were legalised, but the state kept banking, transport, foreign trade and large-scale industry.

  6. 6

    How far had the New Economic Policy succeeded by the mid-1920s?

    Model answer

    Agricultural and industrial output recovered towards pre-war levels and food reappeared in the towns, but many communists resented the traders who profited and the widening gap between industrial prices and what peasants earned.

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