UPSB v3
â˜Neo Soviet Union☠/ Old Communism report
one of mine
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Date: Fri, Apr 24 2009 01:42:57
I wrote this report on the rise of communism a while ago. Don't expect it to be extremely well written. I thought I'd post it here to give the forum a little more life. (note: The lines of periods are for indents) My teacher let me choose any topic to research, so I chose this one, here it is:
.........Russia as a country has experienced many hardships over its history. One of the periods of the most hardships was the rise of the Bolsheviks and communism (see paragraph 2). The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, were the main driving force, but the other group that was the backbone of the revolution was the soviets. The soviets and the Bolsheviks were the most important groups behind the rise of communism in the USSR.
.........One of the most influential groups in the rise of communism was the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were formed when the Russian Congress split up. The two resulting groups were the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Lenin became the leader of the Bolsheviks and came up with the ideas to set the cogs of revolution running. The poor people were very upset with the Tsarist government and the Bolsheviks preached change. An important addition to the Bolsheviks was the man Leon Trotsky. He shared the same views as the Bolsheviks and was a very eloquent speaker, making him the perfect candidate to become the mouthpiece of the Bolsheviks, seeing as Lenin was not very good at public speaking. Lenin and many of the other big figures in the Bolsheviks spent a lot of time working outside of the country. When Lenin made his triumphant return he went in an open roof car and preached change to the people at many designated locations. The provisional government, led by Kerensky, and he did not oppose the Bolsheviks, so they were free to hold public demonstrations, since Kerensky did not think that the Bolsheviks were a threat to them. The Bolsheviks used this to their advantage and won over the hearts of many people. However, after the seeds of revolution had been set, Kerensky realized that letting the Bolsheviks hold as many public demonstrations as they wished was a mistake, and they prevented them from doing it. The poor people desperately wanted peace with Germany, but the Tsar and Kerensky, along with the wealthy class did not want this. The Bolsheviks offered peace if they were brought to power, so many of the peasants joined with Lenin. Because the peasants were so desperate for peace Lenin was able to convince them to agree with the Marxist ideas he had created. These ideas became the basis for all of communism as we know it.
........Communism has some very interesting points that make it a unique form of government. The tenets of Communism were heavily rooted in Karl Marx’s ideas on Capitalism, which is the economy we have, where supply and demand rule the prices. He thought that it was easily corrupted and that a much better form of economy was socialism, which is where the government controls. Lenin and the Bolsheviks took this a step further. The basic economy was still socialism, but in the beginning the people would be paid according to their work; this idea would be implemented during the socialist period. Then this evolved into people being paid according to their needs during the communist period. When this was accomplished, the plan was for the state to die off because the system for work and payment was already set up, and people would live happily as brothers and sisters. Also, the power would lie in the soviets, that were regulated by the ruling party. Moreover, every title in the system except for “citizen†was removed, allowing everyone to live as equals. There would be no landlords, no rulers (except for the Bolsheviks) and therefore there would be no superiority from one person to another. These ideas were very popular with the soviets, as the wealthy and the Tsars had not treated them well. These ideas were driving force behind the entire revolution.
The other main group in the revolution was the soviets. The soviets were the groups made up of the lower-class of Russia, somewhat like unions to the extreme. They were the different divisions of work in organized groups. Which allied with the Bolsheviks to form a very strong force. The richer citizens hated the soviets because they liked the Tsarist government the way it was and the soviets threatened to change that. The wealthy landowners sabotaged the peasants’ work by flooding mines, sabotaging factories, as well as other things. This led to great anger in the soviets, so they turned to the Bolsheviks, who promised them that they would get rid of their landlords and bosses if they allied with them. The soviets had no problems agreeing to this, and a pact was struck between them. This made an unbelievably strong alliance that had quite a few members under its wing. Soon the soviets had such a strong foothold in the city that they started to control all of the work they did gave them a strong hand to play with. They slowly brought more and more people into the soviets and worked with the Bolsheviks to try to start a revolution to overthrow the tsarist government.
........When all the plans came to fruition, Lenin waited patiently for the right time for revolution. Since Petrograd was the home city of the Bolsheviks, it was the first target to be over thrown. The Bolsheviks organized the troops and on the night of November 6th 1917 they began the revolution. They knew that the ideal first target to take out would be the winter palace, which held Kerensky as well as a multitude of other governmental figures. Lenin was surprised to see that in his army he had a brigade made entirely of women. The troops had no difficulty taking over the winter palace and were able to take complete control of it. Kerensky had already fled and was hiding in the American embassy. Once inside the winter palace, the soldiers started to loot the rich halls, but a soldier stopped them and said, “Do not take those things, they belong to the people!†the soldiers thought about it then put everything back where it was originally found. This was topped off by the fact that afterwards the soldiers were patted down to make sure that they weren’t still carrying any of the items from the palace. Two rumors were spread about the Bolsheviks’ exploits in the winter palace. One is that they caused extensive damage to the inside of the palace, which contradicts with the report that all of the things inside the palace were returned. Another rumor was that the Bolsheviks had assaulted the women’s brigade. Large angry mobs formed outside the palace, asking what had happened to their mothers, sisters and daughters. Trotsky came out after the accusation and said that the women had become frightened during the fighting and had been sent to a peaceful camp in what is now Finland. This put the crowds at peace and they dissipate back to their regular lives.
........After the revolution in Petrograd came another big revolution, the one in Moscow. The revolution in Moscow was considerably harder for a few reasons. One of these was that the Bolsheviks did not have nearly as strong a hold on Moscow as they did in Petrograd. Also some of the anti-Bolsheviks had spread rumors that the Bolsheviks had bombed the Kremlin and burned sacred churches. Some of the Bolsheviks were so upset about this that they quit their jobs immediately; however Lenin was able to bring them back in later. Eventually the Bolsheviks were able to persuade the citizens to join the revolution. After Petrograd and Moscow, the main cities of the USSR were captured, the rest of Russia was easily sacked. So began communism.
.......The Bolsheviks, who came up with the ideas, were the group that really set communism in motion; and the Soviets were like the backbone, carrying out and helping the Bolshevik’s plans. If there was only one group but not the other communism wouldn’t have succeeded. It took both of them together to overthrow the tsars. The Bolsheviks and Soviets were the most influential groups in the rise of communism. -
Date: Fri, Apr 24 2009 01:58:28
Nicely written. I'm glad you've taken the initiative to help give this forum life
Thanks. I enjoyed reading this. -
Date: Sun, Apr 26 2009 21:46:46
Good job. Didnt that take you an entire day to type?
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Date: Sun, Apr 26 2009 22:05:13QUOTE (cecil @ Apr 26 2009, 05:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Good job. Didnt that take you an entire day to type?
Thank you. I don't remember how much time we had. It was a lengthy research project. We had to make quite a few notecards, and use a lot of sources.
Thank you too PillarsofValhalla :> -
Date: Wed, May 6 2009 23:02:51
wow nice job
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Date: Wed, May 13 2009 04:44:02
really nice, really thought out. applause to you. i had a report like this.... but it was more focused on why capitalism is used in the US, and is it really the best economic system.
my essay=A+ 102.3% EC ftw! -
Date: Wed, May 13 2009 17:04:31QUOTE (midnight_xhris @ May 13 2009, 12:44 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>really nice, really thought out. applause to you. i had a report like this.... but it was more focused on why capitalism is used in the US, and is it really the best economic system.
my essay=A+ 102.3% EC ftw!
nice, good job.
If I remember, I got a 96% on this report <: