Russian
Revolutio
n
•
Inspired by
Karl Marx
• Wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848
• Followers believed that an industrial class of workers would overthrow the czar, then establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat”
• = working class
•
Russian Revolutionaries
• Mensheviks• Wanted a wide base of support
• Led by Trotsky (who later becomes a Bolshivek)
• Bolsheviks
• Wanted a small group willing to sacrifice everything for radical change
• Led by Lenin, an excellent organizer, engaging speaker & ruthless revolutionary
Marx
The Russian Revolution Was a Long
Time Coming
• Social/Economic Problems
• Feudalism lasted into the 1800s
• Huge gap between rich & poor
• Industrialized late, factory workers experienced poor working conditions, low wages & child labor
• Political Problems
• 1825 Army officers revolted and peasants rioted, plotted to overthrow the government
• Bloody Sunday: January 22, 1905
• 200,000 workers went to the Tsar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg
• Petitioned for better working conditions, more personal freedoms, and an elected national legislature • Tsar Nicholas’s generals ordered soldiers to fire on the crowd, killing over 1,000 unarmed protesters
• Military Defeats
• The Crimean War 1853-56 • Russo-Turkish War 1877-78
• The Russo-Japanese War 1904-05
• World War I (1914-1916)
• By 1916 Russian troops were deserting; food & fuel were scarce at home
The March Revolution
•
March 1917
•
Textile workers led a citywide strike
•
Riots over shortages of bread & fuel
•
Soldiers ended up joining the rebellion
•
Nicholas II abdicated his thrown
•
The entire family was executed 1 year later
•
Country chaotic, provisional (= temporary) gov’t that was very weak
•
Called their law-making body the
Duma
•
Soviets
created
The Bolshevik
Revolution
• Germans sent Lenin back to Russia in April 1917 in the hopes that he would cause even more unrest &
hurt the Russian war effort
• Fall 1917 Lenin’s Slogan: “Peace, Land, Bread” • Seized power in November with no resistance • Farmland distributed to peasants
• Control of factories given to workers
• Negotiated peace with Germany, ended WWI for Russia
Communist Russia
•
1921
Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP)
•
Combination of small-scale capitalism & gov’t controlled major industries, banks &
communication
•
A form of
command economy
= the government decides what to do with its
resources; they determine both production & investment. AKA: “planned economy”
•
1922
USSR
•
= Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
•
Several republics under a central gov’t
•
Bolsheviks renamed
communists
•
Ruled by dictatorship of the party, not the “proletariat”
Totalitarianism
in Russia
•
= gov’t that takes total, centralized state control over every aspect of
public & private life (business, family, religion, the arts)
•
Glorify aims of the state, expect total obedience of the gov’t
•
Personal sacrifice for the good of the state
•
Josef
Stalin
•
The
Great Purge
= Stalin eliminated anyone in the communist party that
threatened his power; 8-13 million people died
•
Targeted certain groups as enemies
The Communist Economy:
Five-Year Plans
•
A
Command Economy
•
Goal was to industrialize & grow military
•
Quotas for steel, coal, oil, electricity output
•
Agricultural revolution—collective farms that were
gov’t owned; many workers died or were exiled in
protest
•
Had fantastic results despite the fact that there was
Lesson Quiz
During the 1800s, the writings of Marx, Engels, and Dickens focused attention on the
problems faced by
(1) Factory owners
(2) Investment bankers
(3) Farm laborers
(4) Industrial workers
What was a major reason the Russian people engaged in the Revolution of 1905?
(5) dissatisfaction with czarist rule
(6) discontent with involvement in World War I
The belief that workers of the world would unite to overthrow their oppressors is
central to
(1) Social Darwinism
(2) Marxism
(3) conservatism
(4) laissez-faire capitalism
Which action contributed to the success of Lenin’s communist revolution in
Russia?
(1) Peasants were promised land reform.
(2) Businessmen were encouraged to form monopolies.
(3) Landowners were offered tax relief.
Which action was taken by the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin?
(1) Supporting a traditional economy
(2) Eliminating political opposition
(3) Surrendering to the Provisional Government
(4) Extending the war against Austria-Hungary
A primary objective of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the Soviet Union was to
(5) promote private ownership of heavy industry
(6) organize support for educational reforms to improve literacy
(7) coordinate efforts to end World War I
Forced famine in Ukraine (1932-1933) was a direct result of
(1) Czar Nicholas’s involvement in World War I
(2) Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy
(3) Joseph Stalin’s collectivization
WW II Background: Post WWI in
Europe
•
Purpose of the
Treaty of Versailles
was to punish Germany rather than maintain
peace
•
Germany had to pay
reparations
= war debt
•
(DBQ #21)
The League of Nations
•
Had no standing army
•
No way to enforce declarations about acts of aggression
•
The United States had not even joined; many Americans were fearful of our involvement in
another world war
•
Germany was in financial and emotional ruin
•
High unemployment & inflation
•
Allowed Hitler to rise to power legally
•
Once in power, he began to act as a dictator
German Persecution
of Jews Prior to the
War
•
Anti-Semitism
= hostility toward Jews had been present in Europe for centuries
•
Jewish people made up 1% of the German population in the 1930s
•
Systematic stripping of the rights of German Jews
•
Concentration camps
• POW, political prisoners & “undesirables”
•
Kristallnacht
(“Night of Broken Glass”) November 9-10, 1938
•
Organized attacks of Jews made to look spontaneous & by civilians
World Events 1933-1939
•
Appeasement
•
= avoid conflict by pleasing the aggressor
•
Italy invaded Ethiopia: no response
•
Spain fell to a nationalist dictator: no response
•
Japan invaded China: no response
•
Hitler invaded the Rhineland: no response
•
Hitler annexed/occupied Austria & Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland): Britain
& France sign the Munich Pact with Germany and declare “peace for our
time”
•
Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union & the two
countries secretly agreed to split Poland
“Let me alone, it is
World War II
• The Allies: US, Britain (& the Commonwealth), France, Poland, the Soviet Union, China, India, the Netherlands
The
Eastern
Front
• Hitler broke his pact with the Soviet Union in 1940
• Stalin asked the US & Britain for help in 1941
• This would take pressure off of the Soviet army & force Hitler to divide his forces • Britain decided to invade Italy instead
• The US didn’t send help until 1942
• The Battle for Stalingrad (1942-1943)
• Turning point of the war on the western front
• After this, the Soviets were on the offensive
• Soviets suffered the greatest casualties: 13.6 million (2/3 of the total dead for all of WW 2 was on this front--Germans killed civilians as well as soldiers—scorched earth policy)
The
Holocaust
• = Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of European Jews
• Genocide= deliberate murder of an entire people
• Watch clip from Inglorious Bastards
• At first, Jews were forced to live in crowded ghettos
• Food & fuel limited—many died
• Located in Poland & Eastern Europe—the Jews in these countries suffered the most because they were caught off guard • Mobile killing vans were introduced in 1939 but not efficient
• The Wannsee Conference (1942)
• The “final solution to the Jewish question” was planned
• Established death camps that existed only for mass murder—gas chambers & crematoria
• 6 million Jews murdered (2/3 of European population)
• 5-6 million other people died in Nazi captivity
Regents Questions
1. Which political leader gained power as a result of the failing economy of the
Weimar Republic?
(1) Adolf Hitler (3) Benito Mussolini
(2) Francisco Franco (4) Charles de Gaulle
2. Which sequence of events is in the correct chronological order?
3. Japan began an aggressive policy of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because Japan (1) needed raw materials for its factories
(2) hoped to spread Shinto (3) sought Western technology
(4) wanted revenge for the Opium Wars
4. . . . No one in this country [Great Britain] who examines carefully the terms under which Hitler’s troops begin their march into Czecho-Slovakia to-day can feel other than unhappy. Certainly the Czechs will hardly appreciate Mr. Chamberlain’s phrase that it is “peace with honour.”. . . — “Return from Munich,” Guardian, October 1, 1938
The author of this excerpt is reacting to Prime Minister Chamberlain’s policy of (1) self-determination (3) containment
(2) ethnic segregation (4) appeasement
5. One reason the League of Nations failed as a world organization was that it (1) supported the rise of fascist states
(2) lacked a military force to settle conflicts
6. ...The German people were never more pitiable than when they stood by and watched this thing done. For the raiders who were let loose on the streets and given a day to sate [indulge] the lowest instincts of cruelty and revenge were indeed an enemy army. No foreign invader could have done more harm. This is Germany in the hour of her
greatest defeat, the best overcome by the worst. While many protested at the outrages, and millions must have been sickened and shamed by the crimes committed in their name, many others looked on stolidly or approvingly while the hunters hunted and the wreckers worked. There are stories of mothers who took their children to see the fun.... — New York Times, November 12, 1938
This 1938 passage criticizes those German people who did not (1) participate in these demonstrations
(2) condemn the violent acts of Kristallnacht (3) support the government’s policy in Austria (4) resist the war effort
7. One way in which the conquest of Manchuria by the Japanese (1931) and the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Germany (1939) are similar is that these actions
(1) marked the end of the aggressive expansion of these nations (2) demonstrated the weakness of the League of Nations
8. . . . In his classic defense of freedom of speech in,
On Liberty
, John
Stuart Mill wrote that if a view is not “fully, frequently, and fearlessly
discussed,” it will become “a dead dogma, not a living truth.” The
existence of the Holocaust should remain a living truth, and those who
are skeptical about the enormity of the Nazi atrocities should be
confronted with the evidence for it. . . . — Peter Singer
Which statement is consistent with the author’s point concerning the
Holocaust?
(1) The evils of the past are best ignored and forgotten.
(2) Frequent and full discussion of the historical evidence of certain
events is desirable.
(3) All eras of history include individuals that reject existing values.
(4) Every generation must apologize for the failures of earlier
Regents Questions
5. Which event caused the policy of appeasement to be viewed as a
failure?
(1) creation of the League of Nations (1919)
(2) forced famine in Ukraine (1932)
(3) invasion of Czechoslovakia (1939)
(4) atomic bombing of Hiroshima (1945)
Regents Questions
7. Which geographic factor was most significant in helping the Soviet Union withstand German attacks in World War II?
(1) The Ural Mountains served as a barrier to advancing German armies. (2) Distance and harsh winters disrupted German supply lines.
(3) Extensive food-producing areas kept the Soviet armies well fed.
(4) Numerous ports along the Arctic Sea allowed for the refueling of Soviet transport ships.
8. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the founding of Amnesty International (1961) are both associated with efforts to recognize and protect the
(5) Economic diversity of nations (6) Dignity of individuals
