Study Questions on Suny, Soviet Experiment, chapters 3-4
Chapter 3
Explain Suny’s summary of the three general positions that historians have taken concerning the origins of Soviet authoritarianism. Does Suny support one of these arguments, or does he try to build a synthesis? Explain.
Does Suny think that the Bolsheviks had specific detailed plans for what they would do once they were in power? Explain.
Did the Bolsheviks have a majority at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets? Explain why the congress created an all-Bolshevik government (the Council of People’s Commissars).
What major policies did Lenin announce at the Second Congress of Soviets? Why were these important?
Who (what groups) initially supported and who opposed the Bolshevik takeover?
When and why did Lenin agree to admit Left SRs into his new government?
What kinds of reforms/legal changes did the Bolsheviks try to make in the first months of the new Soviet government?
Who "won" the elections to the Constituent Assembly, and what did the Bolsheviks do about it? Why? And why (according to Suny) was this action so significant?
Did Lenin argue in January 1918 that the Soviet government could build socialism "on its own"? Explain.
Did Lenin have a clear model (from Marx) of how to build a socialist society? Explain.
What relationship did Lenin think that the Russian revolution would have to the future "world revolution"? Explain.
Suny defines three periods of Soviet economic policy during between 1917 and the 1920s. What are these?
Why did Lenin’s government favor "workers’ control"? Did the government interpret this idea the same way that radical workers did? Explain.
Did Lenin want the government to take control of all the factories (to nationalize them) in October 1917? What forces and pressures led to the nationalization of industry in Spring 1918?
Did Lenin believe that workers could really run the factories all by themselves in early 1918? Explain.
Did Lenin think that Socialism could be built without the use of violence and dictatorship? Explain.
Why and when did Lenin’s government begin using terror as a political tool?
What was the Cheka?
What issues tore apart the Bolshevik-Left SR alliance in 1918?
What were the aims of Soviet diplomacy in the first months of the new regime?
What position did foreign states take towards the new Soviet government? Why?
Why did Lenin and Trotsky want peace with Germany in 1918? What did the Germans want at Brest-Litovsk? Did all Bolsheviks agree with Lenin’s policy towards peace with Germany? How did Lenin justify this policy? Explain.
What were the results of the peace treaty with Germany—in particular, what were the political results in Russia?
What kinds of opposition did the Bolsheviks face in Spring 1918? How did they respond?
As Russia headed toward Civil War, who were the "Reds"? The "Whites"? What side did the non-Bolshevik socialist parties take in this conflict in early summer 1918?
Why did the Bolsheviks begin using mass terror in late June 1918? And why did the terror increase after August 1918?
Who were the principle victims of the "Red Terror"?
Were the Bolsheviks the only group using terror as a weapon? Explain. What was the "White Terror," and who were its principle victims?
According to Suny, there were five distinct groups that fought against the Soviet government during the Civil War. What were they?
What foreign governments intervened in the Russian Civil War and why?
What was the Volunteer Army?
How does Suny describe the general course of the Civil War in the South?
What sorts of policies weakened support for the Whites in the South?
Explain the role of Czechoslovak soldiers in the Civil War in Siberia. What was the Komuch, and why was it weak?
What were the German’s aims in Russia during the Civil War, and how did that shape British and American policy?
How did Trotsky reorganize the Red Army during the Civil War? What was controversial about Trotsky’s military policies?
How did Germany’s defeat in 1918 change the dynamics of the Russian Civil War?
According to Suny, what major organizational problems did the Whites suffer from?
Who was Kolshak, and how did his seizing power in Siberia effect the dynamics of the Civil War?
Was 1919 a good or bad year for the White armies? Explain.
By the end of 1919, who was winning the Civil War?
When would it be fair to say that the Reds had won the Civil War? According to Suny, when did the last fighting in the Civil War actually end?
What were the aims of Soviet nationality policy in 1917-1918, and how did nationality groups in the former Russian Empire take advantage of the revolution?
Did all socialists in the world (or even all Marxists) support the Bolsheviks? Explain.
Did an international socialist revolution break out in Europe after 1917? Where did revolutions break out, and what happened to them? Explain.
What was the Comintern?
How did Soviet foreign policy and the Soviet government’s diplomatic relations change at the end of the Civil War?
How did the Civil War effect the economy, and what did this mean for the working class?
Did Lenin think that Russia, theoretically, was a good place to build socialism? Explain.
How did workers respond to Lenin’s policies regarding factory management, and why?
How did the Soviet government ensure that it would have a labor force?
Explain Trotsky’s idea of "labor armies."
How does Suny explain the causes of anti-Bolshevik worker protests in 1918-1919?
How does Suny describe the relationship between the Bolshevik vision of the "socialist factory" and what workers had hoped for out of socialism? Explain.
Why were the peasants so critical to the Bolsheviks’ ability to hold on to power?
What was Soviet land policy in October 1917-early 1918?
How did peasants understand the meaning of the revolution, and how did they act to put this "vision" into practice?
What were the results of the agrarian revolution of 1917-1918?
Did Soviet power mean that the food supply crisis had been solved? Explain.
What were "kulaks"? What were the Committees of Poor Peasants? What were the Military Food Brigades?
Explain the various shifts in Soviet government policy towards collecting grain during 1917-1919.
What were the sovkhozy and the kommuny?
Who did peasants support during the Civil War? Explain.
Once the Reds had won the Civil War, were the Communists popular in the countryside? Explain.
How does Suny explain the reasons that the Bolsheviks won the Civil War? What were the costs?
Chapter 4
Were all subjects of the tsarist Russian Empire Russians? Explain.
Did the Tsarist government treat all nationalities equally? Did educated Russians treat all nationalities equally?
What characterized tsarist policy towards the nationalities in the decades before 1917?
Where is Transcaucasia? What nationality and religious groups live there?
How did the following nationality groups (in general) respond to the Bolshevik revolution, and what was there general relationship to the new Soviet regime in 1917-1920?:
Azerbajaniis
Georgians
Armenians
Where is Ukraine, and what does Suny tell us about its population and its relations with Russia before 1917?
How does Suny summarize the very complicated history of Ukraine in 1917-1918?
Where is Belorussia, and what does Suny tell us about its population and its relations with Russia before 1917?
Compare the course of events in Belorussia in 1917-1918 to that in Ukraine.
Was there an independent Poland before 1918? Explain.
Why did the Bolshevik government go to war against Poland in 1920? And why did the Soviet invasion of Poland fail?
What lesson did Lenin learn from the Polish war?
Where are Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and what does Suny tell us about their populations and relations with Russia before 1917?
Compare the course of events in 1917-1918 in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
What is Suny’s main point about the creation of independent states in Belorussia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania?
Where is Finland, and what does Suny tell us about its population and relations with Russia before 1917?
When did the Finns declare independence, and who won the Finnish Civil War?
What does Suny tell us about Russian-Jewish relations before 1917?
What did the 1917 Revolution mean for Russia’s Jews?
What sort of position did the Jews find themselves in during the Civil War? Explain.
Did the Bolsheviks all agree on how to treat the Jews as a distinct group? Explain.
What regions in the Russian Empire were predominately Islamic? What does Suny tell us about relations between the tsarist regime and the Muslim peoples of the east before 1917?
What was the Jadidist movement?
How did Muslim leaders respond to the 1917 revolution?
How does Suny characterize Russian-Muslim relations during the Civil War?
Was there wide support for the Soviet government in Central Asia during the Civil War? Explain.
Why did Lenin (and Stalin) consider Central Asia so important in 1918-1920? How did this policy change in 1921?
What is Suny’s main point in the chapter about the relationship between class struggles and nationalism before 1917, during 1917, and during the Civil War?