37
This is based on an Estonian radio show, 'Müstiline Venemaa' ('Mystical Russia') created by historian David Vseviov, an episode of which was titled 'The Financing of Bolshevik Activities' and which described the pre-Revolution methods and two other, 'Banking. Money Reform' and 'Speculations around Money', episodes which described the activities after the ...
18
Lenin, and all the Bolsheviks, believed that the USSR needed to industrialise very rapidly, so that it could defend itself effectively against foreign attacks. The Russian Empire had performed poorly against the Germans. The allies attacked the Bolsheviks, and arguably only failed because their countries were war-weary.
There were two camps here. Bukharin ...
17
tl;dr Nobody knows.
If you haven't found anything conclusive, you are not alone: there's no agreement among the historians, either. Some say Lenin was not at all responsible, that the execution was sanctioned by the local government and that Lenin and the top party members were informed about that post factum. Some say Lenin was the one who gave the orders. ...
10
The White Army was never a unified force but rather a number of armies of varying sizes which rarely co-ordinated their efforts. David Bullock, in The Russian Civil War 1918-22 states
Overall, the White armies were middle class in orientation but were
amazingly heterogeneous. Their ranks contained the full spectrum of
former Russian society, from ...
10
Joseph Stalin was, for most of his life, a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik faction) (RSDLP(b)) and its precursor (RSDLP) and inheritor (Communist Party of the Soviet Union, CPSU) parties. He was singularly responsible for that party's own history of itself, revised from 1937-1956, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet ...
9
It is very probable that your great grandfather was a member of Bund. Bund was a Jewish
socialist party. They split from the rest of social democrats in 1903. After the revolution (November 1917) they were disbanded and many of them joined Bolsheviks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Jewish_Labour_Bund_in_Lithuania,_Poland_and_Russia
I make this ...
9
Mirsky was saying that after the defeat by Japan in 1905 (and the resulting uprising), that Russia had to choose between "reform" and "anarchy."
Nicholas had blocked, and the nobles had failed to produce, "reform," so the result would be "anarchy." For which jails might be an antidote.
8
This was kept a secret for the same reason that FDR "was careful never to be seen in [a wheelchair] in public. Great care was also taken to prevent his being portrayed by the press in a way which would highlight his disability" - the severely ill heir subverts trust in government. This is especially true of the Russian monarchy, which claimed divine right.
8
In this article is a picture of French colonial troops in Ukraine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Russia_intervention
It also mentions: “By 14 April there were only 5,000 allied soldiers in , including 2,000 Greek and 1,500 Algerian and Senegalese troops.“
The men in the picture might be Senegalese fighting for France.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
7
Cossack was not just a regiment one can get drafted into, it was something hereditary and traditional. The cossacks lived in specific areas (Don, Kuban river basins, Siberia, etc), had their own settlements, basically forming sub-ethnic groups.
Now, being a cossack is really nothing traditional in Belarus. Not now, neither in the beginning of the 20th ...
7
The USS Grant was just one of the vessels took 2-3 times the Czech Legion soldiers home. They passed several important ports including Shanghai, Hong Kong and Colombo. Mostly were shipping on the route Vladivostok-Shanghai-Hong Kong-Singapore-Colombo-Suez-Port Said-and finally arrived at Trieste, then they took the railway back to Prague. I am now writing ...
7
Indeed, as @TomAu has said, the evacuation of the Czechs (and Slovaks!) was handled by the US government, which also presumably paid for it.
I found a Romanian article about Victor Cădere, a Romanian diplomat operating at the same time and place with a similar objective: evacuation of Romanian nationals. This article provides some valuable information:
...
7
For "top of the pile", Wiki claims that
58% of the 1917 Party Central Committee was eliminated by 1938.
63% of the first Bolshevik government was executed by that time.
Out of 267 1917-1934 Central Committee members, 34 died before 1937, 36 survived the Purge, the rest (74%) were executed.
Of course, the "rank and file" Old Bolsheviks (the definition ...
6
It may be wrong translation.
In the original it's "Будем строить тюрьмы", an incomplete colloquial phrase which may, depending on intonation, be interpreted both as 1st person plural imperative (Let's build jails) and as 1st person plural future indicative (We'll be building jails).
I suppose he gloomily said that his effort failed, so "we" (i. e. the ...
6
They benefited indirectly. First, according to the treaty Germany had to evacuate their troops in Ukraine, (and everywhere else on the territory of the former Russian empire) which made it possible for Russia to conquer Ukraine.
I recall that in spring 1918 Russia surrendered to Germany (Brest-Litovsk treaty. This treaty was universally considered shameful ...
6
Short answer
From the available evidence, it would appear that maybe as many as half of the (around 40) fatalities were passersby. This can be tentatively deduced from the likely number of non-passersby in the two carriages attacked. However, other police placed around side streets were also targeted by the Bolsheviks gunmen. The only named victims are the ...
6
I personally doubt this report's accuracy. I've seen numerous reports, news articles of the time 1918-20 in the American/British press that this just seems another one far from reality (like those in which the Bolsheviks were defeated etc).
From what I know, since 1918 the Bolsheviks started "prodrazvyorstka" — commandeering grain from peasants. From this ...
5
Yes, you are almost completely off track:-) The situation was
a) much more complicated, and b) quickly changing with time during 1917-1918.
Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were the split parts of the Social-Democratic party,
(SD)
which in 1917 was a minority party in all respects. So one cannot say that they
expressed the views of the majority of workers, ...
5
Well, these words most probably originate in Lenin's "Letters from afar" (March 1917). However, (1) Lenin wrote these words many(!) times in different combinations as the parts of larger sentences; (2) "The land" actually appears but once, while he was writing about Russian peasantry as a natural ally for the workers class; most often he spoke about "peace, ...
5
May be your great grandfather was mobilised to the army when the WW1 was started. The Russian army had about 1,3 million soldiers and after mobilization it was up to 5 million soldiers. Both brothers had got signs of the second degree "For excellent shooting from rifles":
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Нагрудный_знак_«За_отличную_стрельбу_из_винтовок»
I ...
5
According to this Wikipedia page on the Revolution of 1905 (Bloody Sunday), socialism became important politically in Russia shortly after the accession of Tsar Alexander II in the 1860's and 1870's. A few reasons are offered:
Agricultural policy. The Tsar ended serfdom making a class of tax-paying peasants. The taxes were too high and the amount of land ...
5
There is a dedicated article in the Russian segment of Wikipedia and its part is dedicated almost exactly to the period you are (or were at the time the question was asked) interested in Education in the Russian Empire (in Russian)
It is rather large to translate it completely, so let me translate only those parts which have references to some statistical ...
5
From Robert Messie "Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty." (If you do not know, Ilyich in this context means Lenin.)
The link between the party leaders in Moscow who authorized the murder and the Ural Soviet which determined the time and method of execution was later described by Trotsky. He explained that ...
5
That varied.
Over time and space – and sadly for description – not ever uniformly. Trying such a broad stroke nevertheless: Until the 1940s it went up and down at the same time and this differed between locations, social strata. While extremely poor and remote populations started to wear it, in urban contexts its use went down. But even in rural areas it was ...
4
"Peace, land, and bread" was a distillation of the complicated Communist doctrine that the peasantry could understand and get behind. As it is a simple three word slogan, I doubt there's a "definitive" version. And as we see below, "freedom" or "liberty" often also show up in Lenin's writing.
"Peace, land, and bread" is often attributed to Lenin's The Tasks ...
4
The military ranks were abolished. This does not mean command hierarchy was abolished. Soldiers were renamed to "fighters", officers to "commanders". A general became "comandarm" or "combrig" depending on what he commanded, an army or a brigade.
4
This is a good and easy question.
Lenin won because he was a ruthless opportunist without a shred of consciousness.
Ruthless
Lenin did not hesitate to order mass executions and incarceration (in concentration camps) of anyone "tangential" ("прикосновенный") to a counterrevolutionary plot.
Opportunist
Lenin did not hesitate to change his policies 180° ...
4
They were the people who did not fit in any of the traditional strata of feudal society
Russian society in the period you mentioned was roughly divided in four groups: nobility, clergy, peasants (serfs) and city(town) dwellers (merchants, craftsmen, etc ...). This is largely similar to other feudal European societies up to 19th century. Raznochintsy were ...
3
You should first read the Wikipedia account of the Revolution of 1905 for the general background of your ancestor's story, and try to see the movie Battleship Potemkin for a dramatic presentation of the events in Odessa. (This movie is a prime example of victors' history, but is a good watch.)
It is not an oversimplification to say that there were many ...
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