CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: RUSSIAN TERROR TRADITION BEFORE STALIN - TSARS AND LENIN. Contains: last 2 czars, Alexander the third, nationalism, autocracy, russification, bloody Sunday, Lenin, Red Terror.

1. HISTORY CAMBRIDGE A2 (PAPER 4)
PRESENTATION 11
STALIN MODULE
4. USE OF REPRESSION AND TERROR
RUSSIAN TERROR
“TRADITION”
BEFORE STALIN:
TSARS AND LENIN

2. POWERPOINT BASED ON
Lynch, Stalin’s Russia 1924-53 chapter 2 and 4

3. Czar Alexander the third 1881-1894
Alexander III, or Alexander Alexandrovich
Romanov, 10 March 1845 – 1 November
1894 was the penultimate Emperor of
Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Prince
of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his
death on 1 November 1894.
He was highly conservative and reversed
some of the liberal reforms of his father,
Alexander II. During Alexander's reign
Russia fought no major wars, for which
he was styled "The Peacemaker".

4. Nationalism, Orthodoxy and Autocracy
A physically imposing man, the new Czar had watched his father die in a
St Petersburg Palace. As a result of the assassination, Alexander III would
not consider granting a parliament. He tightened censorship of the press
and sent thousands of revolutionaries to Siberia.
In his Accession Manifesto, he declared his intention to have "full faith in
the justice and strength of the autocracy" that he had been entrusted
with. Any liberal proposals in government were quickly dismissed.
Judges and officials who were sympathetic to Liberal ideas were removed
from office.

5. The age of counter reform
His reign is often referred to as the Age of Counter Reform. He is known
as a reactionary ruler. To many westerners he appeared crude and not
very intelligent. Queen Victoria commented that she thought him as "a
sovereign whom she does not look upon as a gentlemen."
He was greatly influenced by his tutor Constantine Pobedonostsev who
instilled into him conservative values. His political ideal was a nation
containing only one nationality, one language, one religion and one form
of administration.

6. russification
A policy of Russification was introduced. This involved imposing the
Russian language and Russian schools on the Germans, the Poles and the
Finns and all other minority nationalities.
Russian had also to be used by local officials and in the courts. The policy
was not successful and bred resentment.
“Trying to stamp out the native language was not just an insulting and
demoralizing policy… it was ridiculous as well. Polish students at Warsaw
University, for example, had to suffer the absurd indignity of studying their
own native literature in Russian translation.” FIGES

7. SCHOOLS, POLICE AND CHURCH
Schools were also forced to raise their fees to prevent the poorer classes
gaining an education.
In 1897 the illiteracy rate was 79%. Universities lost most of the freedoms
gained under Alexander II and censorship was tightened considerably.
He strengthened the security police, reorganizing it into an agency known as
the Okhrana.
He encouraged the Orthodox Church at the expense of other religions
especially the Catholic Church. It was an offence to convert from the
Orthodox Church to another faith.
Divorce could only be granted through a church court. The Orthodox Church
was given control of primary schools.

8. THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS
Alexander also persecuted the Jews. Many blamed them for the
assassination of Alexander II.
Over six hundred anti-Jewish measures were introduced. For example the
number who could attend university was limited. They were forbidden to
trade on Christian holy days.
There were many pogroms or attacks on Jews although they were not
officially encouraged.
Anti-Jewish policies led to large scale Jewish emigration to Europe and the
US. Many others joined revolutionary organisations opposed to the
Czarist government.

9. Nicholas II 1894-1917: The Last Czar
Nicholas II, 18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918, was the last Emperor of Russia,
ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March
1917. His reign saw the fall of Imperial Russia from being one of the
foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse.
Due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the
violent suppression of the 1905 Revolution, the execution of political
opponents and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War,
he was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody by his political enemies.

10. CONFLICTING Nicholas
Highly educated, hard working and deeply religious, Nicholas was gentle and
approachable. Those who met him easily forgot that they were face to face
with the Emperor. However he could be weak and inconsistent. For example
he found it very difficult to dismiss ministers and left it to others. The more
powerful a minister became the more jealous Nicholas became and talented
ministers were seen as a threat, e.g. Witte and Stolypin. He was a stubborn
supporter of the right of the sovereign, despite growing pressure for
revolution. He had had the same tutor as his father. Soon after his accession
Nicholas stated that he intended to maintain the autocratic system. He said
he saw it as his duty to “maintain the principle of autocracy just as firmly and
unflinchingly as it was preserved by my unforgettable dead father.”
But as Figes wrote: “Nicholas had not been blessed with either his father’s
strength of character or his intelligence.”

11. BLOODY SUNDAY
The revolution was sparked by an event that became known as “Bloody
Sunday”. On 22 January 1905 a police agent Gapon led a peaceful
demonstration of 200,000 men, women and children to the Winter Palace
in St Petersburg calling for reform and an end to the war. The police and
troops guarding the palace opened fire and over 1000 people were killed
or wounded. This event had two important effects:
Although he had not ordered the troops to fire, the killings destroyed the
centuries' old belief among common people that the Czar was the “Little
Father” who had their interests at heart. It sparked off a wave of strikes
and terrorism throughout Russia. By the end of January over 400,000
people were on strike. The Czar’s uncle was assassinated in February.

12. DISCONTENT SPREADS
Strikes spread throughout the Russian empire especially to the non-Russian lands such
as Poland. At the same time peasants attacked the houses of nobles throughout the
country. The crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied. This event raised the worrying
prospect of the Czar losing the support of the army. Matters were not helped by bad
new from the war with Japan.
The Czar refused to listen to demands for political change and in October a general strike
occurred as workers in the railways, industry and the banks went on strike.
Soviets or councils were formed in the major cities. The most famous was in the capital
St Petersburg. These councils were made up of members who represented the workers.
They were very powerful and controlled the towns.

13. IN THE WAR
Russia suffered a decisive defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. The
Anglo-Russian Entente, designed to counter German attempts to
gain influence in the Middle East, ended the Great Game between
Russia and the United Kingdom.
As head of state, Nicholas approved the Russian mobilization in
late July 1914, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia on 1
August. It is estimated that around 3.3 million Russians were
killed in World War I.
The Imperial Army's severe losses and the High Command's
incompetent management of the war efforts, along with the lack
of food and other supplies on the Home Front, were the leading
causes of the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

14. ROMANOVS EXECUTED
Following the February Revolution of 1917 Nicholas abdicated on behalf of
himself and his son, and he and his family were imprisoned. In the spring
of 1918, Nicholas was handed over to the local Ural Soviet; with the
approval of Lenin, Nicholas and his family were eventually executed by the
Bolsheviks on the night of 16/17 July 1918. The recovered remains of the
Imperial Family were finally re-interred in St. Petersburg in 1998.
In 1981, Nicholas, his wife and their children were canonized as martyrs by
the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, located in New York City. On
15 August 2000 Nicholas and his family were canonized as passion bearers,
a title commemorating believers who face death in a Christ-like manner,
by the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia.

15. LENIN’S RED TERROR
The Red Terror was a campaign of mass killings, torture, and systematic
oppression conducted by the Bolsheviks after the beginning of the Russian
Civil War in 1918.
Soviet historiography describes the Red Terror as having been officially
announced in September 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ending October 1918.
However, the term was frequently applied to political repression during the
whole period of the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922.
The Cheka (the Bolshevik secret police) conducted the mass repressions.
Estimates for the total number of people killed in the Red Terror range from
10,000 and 15,000, to 50,000 to 140,000 to over one and a half million.

16. TROTSKY 1920
The original Red Terror was a wartime campaign against perceived counter-
revolutionaries during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1921, targeting those
who sided with the Whites. Leon Trotsky described the context in 1920:
The severity of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, let us point out here, was
conditioned by no less difficult circumstances [i.e. than the French Revolution].
There was one continuous front, on the north and south, in the east and west.
Besides the Russian White Guard armies of Kolchak, Denikin and others, there
are those attacking Soviet Russia, simultaneously or in turn: Germans,
Austrians, Czech-Slovaks, Serbs, Poles, Ukrainians, Romanians, French, British,
Americans, Japanese, Finns, Esthonians, Lithuanians ... In a country throttled by
a blockade and strangled by hunger, there are conspiracies, risings, terrorist
acts, and destruction of roads and bridges.

17. TROTSKY contrast terror with the revolution
Trotsky then went on to contrast the terror with the revolution and provide
the Bolshevik's justification for it:
The first conquest of power by the Soviets at the beginning of November 1917
(new style) was actually accomplished with insignificant sacrifices. The Russian
bourgeoisie found itself to such a degree estranged from the masses of the
people, so internally helpless, so compromised by the course and the result of
the war, so demoralized by the regime of Kerensky, that it scarcely dared show
any resistance. ... A revolutionary class which has conquered power with arms
in its hands is bound to, and will, suppress, rifle in hand, all attempts to tear the
power out of its hands. Where it has against it a hostile army, it will oppose to
it its own army. Where it is confronted with armed conspiracy, attempt at
murder, or rising, it will hurl at the heads of its enemies an unsparing penalty.

18. Lenin introduces mass terror
The campaign of mass repressions officially started as retribution for the assassination Petrograd
Cheka leader Moisei Uritsky by Leonid Kannegisser and for the attempted assassination 1918 of Lenin
by Fanni Kaplan. While recovering from his wounds, Lenin instructed: "It is necessary – secretly and
urgently to prepare the terror". Even before the assassinations, Lenin had sent telegrams "to
introduce mass terror" in Nizhny Novgorod in response to a suspected civilian uprising there, and to
"crush" landowners in Penza, who resisted sometimes violently, the requisitioning of their grain by
military detachments:
"Comrades! The kulak uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity ... You must make example
of these people. Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and
known bloodsuckers. Publish their names. Seize all their grain. Single out the hostages per my instructions in
yesterday's telegram. Do all this so that for miles around people see it all, understand it, tremble, and tell
themselves that we are killing the bloodthirsty kulaks and that we will continue to do so ... Yours, Lenin. P.S.
Find tougher people."

19. Appeal to the working class
The first official announcement of a Red Terror, published in Izvestiya,
"Appeal to the Working Class" on 3 September 1918, called for the workers
to "crush the hydra of counterrevolution with massive terror! ... anyone who
dares to spread the slightest rumor against the Soviet regime will be arrested
immediately and sent to concentration camp".
There followed the decree "On Red Terror", issued on 5 September 1918 by
the Cheka. On 15 October, the leading Chekist Gleb Bokii, summing up the
officially ended Red Terror, reported that in Petrograd 800 alleged enemies
had been shot and another 6,229 imprisoned.
Casualties in the first two months were between 10,000 and 15,000 based
on lists of summarily executed people published in newspaper Cheka Weekly
and other official press.

20. The fight with counter-revolution
A declaration About the Red Terror by the Sovnarkom on 5 September 1918
stated:
...that for empowering the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission in the fight
with the counter-revolution, profiteering and corruption and making it more
methodical, it is necessary to direct there possibly bigger number of the
responsible party comrades, that it is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic
from the class enemies by way of isolating them in concentration camps, that
all people are to be executed by fire squad who are connected with the White
Guard organizations, conspiracies and mutinies, that it is necessary to publicize
the names of the executed as well as the reasons of applying to them that
measure.

21. Prisoners and suspects
As the Russian Civil War progressed, significant numbers of prisoners, suspects and
hostages were executed because they belonged to the "possessing classes".
Numbers are recorded for cities occupied by the Bolsheviks:
In Kharkov there were between 2,000 and 3,000 executions in February–June 1919, and
another 1,000–2,000 when the town was taken again in December of that year; in
Rostov-on-Don, approximately 1,000 in January 1920; in Odessa, 2,200 in May–August
1919, then 1,500–3,000 between February 1920 and February 1921; in Kiev, at least
3,000 in February–August 1919; in Ekaterinodar, at least 3,000 between August 1920
and February 1921; In Armavir, a small town in Kuban, between 2,000 and 3,000 in
August–October 1920. The list could go on and on.

22. Executing hostages
The Internal Troops of the Cheka and the Red Army practised the terror
tactics of taking and executing numerous hostages, often in connection with
desertions of forcefully mobilized peasants.
According to Orlando Figes, more than 1 million people deserted from the
Red Army in 1918, around 2 million people deserted in 1919, and almost 4
million deserters escaped from the Red Army in 1921.
Around 500,000 deserters were arrested in 1919 and close to 800,000 in
1920 by Cheka troops and special divisions created to combat desertions.
Thousands of deserters were killed, and their families were often taken
hostage, according to Lenin's instructions.

23. Cheka report
In September 1918, in just twelve provinces of Russia, 48,735 deserters and 7,325
bandits were arrested, 1,826 were killed and 2,230 were executed. A typical report
from a Cheka department stated:
Yaroslavl Province, 23 June 1919. The uprising of deserters in the Petropavlovskaya
volost has been put down. The families of the deserters have been taken as hostages.
When we started to shoot one person from each family, the Greens began to come out
of the woods and surrender. Thirty-four deserters were shot as an example.
Estimates suggest that during the suppression of the Tambov Rebellion of 1920-
1921, around 100,000 peasant rebels and their families were imprisoned or
deported and perhaps 15,000 executed.

24. The beginning of the gulag
This campaign marked the beginning of the Gulag, and some scholars have
estimated that 70,000 were imprisoned by September 1921 (this number excludes
those in several camps in regions that were in revolt, such as Tambov).
Conditions in these camps led to high mortality rates, and "repeated massacres"
took place. The Cheka at the Kholmogory camp adopted the practice of drowning
bound prisoners in the nearby Dvina river.
Occasionally, entire prisons were "emptied" of inmates via mass shootings prior to
abandoning a town to White forces.