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Russia, 1894–1945: Tsardom and Communism

The impact of Lenin's dictatorship

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1 section A

Overview

The Constituent Assembly closed, Brest-Litovsk and the civil war it fed, the Cheka and the Red Terror, Trotsky's Red Army, the Whites and foreign intervention, the Romanovs' deaths, why the Reds won, and the cost.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Who and when

Who were the Whites, why did foreign troops land in Russia after 1918, and how was propaganda used against the Whites?

Key term

Why did the Reds win?

Numbers

What was the Cheka, and who ran it?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What did Lenin do with the Constituent Assembly elected in November 1917?

    Model answer

    The Social Revolutionaries won far more seats than the Bolsheviks, so he let it meet once in January 1918 and then had Red Guards shut it down for good.

  2. 2

    What did Russia surrender under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918?

    Model answer

    Poland, the Baltic provinces, Finland and Ukraine, taking with them about a third of the population and most of the country's coal and iron, in return for peace with Germany.

  3. 3

    What was the Cheka, and who ran it?

    Model answer

    The Bolshevik political police, created in December 1917 under Dzerzhinsky, with power to arrest, imprison and shoot opponents without any trial.

  4. 4

    What set off the Red Terror in 1918?

    Model answer

    The shooting and wounding of Lenin by Fanya Kaplan in August, after which the Cheka executed thousands of hostages and suspected enemies of the regime.

  5. 5

    How did Trotsky turn the Red Army into a force that could win?

    Model answer

    He brought back conscription and thousands of former tsarist officers, attached political commissars to watch them, and imposed harsh discipline including the shooting of deserters.

  6. 6

    Who were the Whites, and what held them together?

    Model answer

    Former tsarists, liberals, nationalists and Social Revolutionaries, led by commanders such as Denikin, Kolchak and Yudenich, united by nothing except the wish to destroy Bolshevik rule.

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