Historians AOS2
"The fact that the [...] took charge of a disintegrating society because it was disintegrating is a fact of great importance, which must be born in mind in analysing their subsequent actions"
Alec Nove, Bolsheviks during Civil War
"intolerably severe are the terms of peace"
Lenin, treaty of Brest-Litovsk
May 1918 - 1922
Russian Civil War
7 million
Starved during the Civil War
"The Bolshevik regime was fashioned by the exigencies of [...]. Half measures are of little value in such times of crisis."
Martin McCauley, The Civil War, on Bolshevik War Communism
"We are barely hanging on" "[Russia is] a man beaten within an inch of his life"
Lenin on the state of Soviet Russia in the Civil War
5/6th January 1918
Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
70% / 50%
70% of people in Petrograd and 50% of the people in Moscow had left for the countryside by 1920
"If War Communism was a leap into socialism then [...] was a leap out of socialism"
Martin McCauley, The New Economic Policy (NEP)
"send grain, grain, and more grain!!" "to get bread - that is the basis of socialism today"
3rd March 1918
Sovnarkom accepts the treaty of Brest-Litovsk
34% / 32% / 3 billion / 89% / 54% / 26%
In the treaty of Brest-Litovsk Russia lost 34% of its European population, 32% of its farmland including the Ukraine, 3 billion roubles in war reps, lost 89% of iron and coal reserves, 54% of industry, and 26% of railways
"The more we learn about the establishment of the Soviet regime, the more obvious it becomes that Lenin and his colleagues were correct in assuming that power would not fall into and remain in their hands"
Robert Service on Soviet Terror and War Communism
"Everything for the front!" "The Soviet republic must have an army that can fight battles and win"
Trotsky on the policies of War Communism for fueling the Civil War
8 March 1921
start of the New Economic Policy
100k / 40k / 150k / 140k
Admiral Kolchak's troops at Eastern front / Czech Legion troops / General Denkin troops in Ukraine / Troops sent by America and Japan
"The [...] of 1917 was thus part of a chain whose other links consisted of the failure of basic institutions. The failure at each link intensified the failure at all the others"
Lars Lih, food supply crisis
"we stand for organised terror - this should be frankly stated"
Felix Dzerzhinsky, on Cheka terror in Civil War
1st January 1918
Assassination attempt on Lenin
for every [...] 4 more where [...]
For every factory nationalised under the Worker's Control Decree 4 more where nationalised without government permission