1899-Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) joins the Second International, the successor to the International Workingmens' Association which included the likes of Marx, Engels, and Bakunin, anarchists are explicitly denied membership in the organization having largely been seen as discredited and ultraleftist by the "propaganda by the deed" wave, concentrated in France and Italy.

1902-Social-Revolutionary Party founded in Russia, based around the Nardnik ideals with their support based in the peasantry instead of urban workers.

1903-RSDLP splits into two factions, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, Lenin is a leader of the Bolshevik faction, they do not unite again until 1906.

1905-First Russian Revolution. In the wake of the humiliation of the Russo-Japanese War, shortages and exploitative working conditions led to a series of mass strikes and a mass of workers marched on the palace of the Tsar and put forth a series of demands to improve the lives of the Russian populace. Most of the county went on strike and Soviets (Russian word for Workers Council) popped up across the major cities.

During the chaos a series of reactionary crackdowns and pogroms took place, eventually in reaction to the uprising the Tsar promised democratic representation and other reforms, pacifying a large portion of the populace. The Duma was created to be a parliament for the country, but the actual authority still rested in the hands of the Tsar, essentially the country became a constitutional monarchy.

1906-first elections to the Duma are held, the Social Revolutionaries boycott the election while the RSDLP only wins 18 seats (Bolsheviks boycotting the vote, all candidates are Mensheviks), most seats are held by liberal reformists and a group that split off from the Social Revolutionary Party.

-1907, for the elections to the Second Duma the Bolsheviks decide to participate along with the Social-Revolutionaries, giving the RSDLP and SR's the largest portion of seats (with the Trudoviks included, they hold a majority). The Duma was then dissolved by the Tsar under the guise of an attempted coup by the SR's and RSDLP.

1912-RSDLP formally splits into the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions, each claiming to be the legitimate heir to the former social democratic party.

Bolsheviks become a much more hardline and revolutionary party, organized on the basis of Democratic Centralism, while the Mensheviks move more towards the center and are more cooperative with other mildly left groups.

Also during this period the Social Revolutionaries revert to their old ways of Nihilism somewhat, several thousand officials of the Tsarist government are assassinated by party members.

>>45709

>Narodnikism appears around this time

Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin's older brother was a member of Narodnaya Volya and was executed by hanging in 1887 for his part in a plot to assassinate Alexander III.
(again probably not important but possibly intersting).

4/? (forgot to number before)

1914-First World War breaks out due to a clusterfuck of alliances, and draws Russia in as a major player. The war is devastating to the Russian populace and most see no reason to have entered such a deadly war in the first place (I don't think anyone can really justify WWI as anything but buttfuckingly retarded).

1915-Zimmerwald Conference held in Switzerland by the Second International. The international splits between factions in favor of the war (such as the German Social Democratic Party) on a basis of nationalism, and those opposed to the war, denouncing it as an imperialist conflict. The faction known as the "Zimmerwald Left", represented by Zinoviev at the conference, breaks off from the 2nd International splitting social democratic parties throughout Europe between Marxists and reformists.

March 1917-mass dissatisfaction with the war and rapidly declining living conditions in Russia leads to a general strike and bread riots in St. Petersburg. Soldiers in the city join the strikers in the February Revolution. The Tsar abdicated his throne and leadership of the country was places in the hands of a coalition of constitutionalists and reformists. Meanwhile across the country more Soviets were being formed, mainly by the Bolshevik party but including other revolutionary leftist factions. The workers councils united with soldiers councils also formed by the bolsheviks and formed their own paramilitary organization, the Red Guards.

The new government has little authority, the former Trudovik and now Social-Revolutionary Party member Alexander Kerensky rises to power and attempts to unite the country. Due to pressure from the Allied Forces, Kerensky makes the very unpopular decision to keep Russia in the war instead of pull out, strengthening the position of the Bolsheviks.

Protests against the continuation of the war continued, as well as Bolshevik led strikes and other uprisings, the new slogan of the party became "all power to the soviets". An uprising by the sailors of Krondstadt fueled further agitation and Lenin, who was in exile in Finland, returned to Russia with the help of the Germans (to destabilize the country), and led what is now called the October Revolution.

5/?

In October/November of 1917 (they were still using the Julian calendar in Russia), the Bolsheviks decided to seize complete control of the state. In the 1917 Duma elections, the Bolshevik party came in 2nd place, taking about 1/4th of the vote, while the Social-Revolutionary party took in 40%. About 90% of workers and soldiers voted for the Bolshevik Party, but the Social Revolutionaries and other factions still had the support of the peasantry the Bolsheviks lacked.

Over the course of a few days the Bolsheviks seized power in every major city in the country and deployed the Red Guards (who would now be known as the Red Army) to act as the new military and police of the country, the Winter Palace was stormed and the Bolsheviks declared themselves leaders of the new government of Russia.

The October coup, of course, was met with large resistance from peasant factions, the Social Revolutionaries, Tsarists, nationalists, anarchists, nobles, Mensheviks, Liberals, basically anyone who wasn't an urban worker or supporter of the Bolshevik Party was opposed.

1918-Treaty of Brest-Litovisk signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, establishing peace between the two countries in exchange for Russia surrendering large amounts of land (parts of Poland, Belarus, western Ukraine, the Baltic states, Finland, and Moldova). Trotsky is opposed to the treaty and refuses to sign it, wanting to continue the war and bring Socialism to Germany, Lenin tells him to go fuck himself and he signs the treaty.

6/?

1918-1921-Russian Civil War. This is one of the biggest clusterfucks in history, imagine every political ideology having their own army and fighting each other, I don't want to go into detail, too much to type out for something ya'll can google.

During the Civil War the Bolsheviks institute a policy called War Communism as an emergency measure, where excess food is taken directly from the peasantry for no compensation, everything was put under state control, and military influence was hardcore. These were all shitty policies, but seen by the Bolsheviks as necessary to win the war.

In 1919 the Reds in Finland, which had separated from Russia, lost their civil war after a white/Swedish reaction to the uprising.

In 1921 as the civil war was starting up, a scorched earth policy taken out by the White counterrevolutionaries and resistance from the peasantry to the policy of War Communism (destroying their own surplus crops, for instance) led to the 1921 famine, which killed 4 million people in the new Soviet Union, not a great start.

I have to take my dog out but will be back to type more later.

>>45718

*winding down, not starting up

7/?

A little more about the Revolution itself should be mentioned, as far as the role of the masses and less so the various Parties involved.

The (October) Revolution introduced a working day of 8 hours, redistribution of land from landlords and kulaks to the poor peasantry, workers seizing direct control of their factories, nationalization of the banks and all foreign assets, etc etc etc.

Anyways, after the Tambov Rebellion and Krondstadt Uprising (both left wing assaults against the Bolsheviks, one peasant based one ultraleftist). Factions were banned within the communist party as undermining party unity and thus the security of the Soviet Union.

Lenin died in 1924, leaving a power vacuum in the Soviet Union. For years previous Lenin's role had only been ceremonial, as he was suffering from a degenerative brain disease, most of the actual day to day party business was handled by the Politburo (central committee), with Joseph Stalin as general secretary, Lev Kamenev as Deputy Chairman, and Grigory Zinoviev, another prominent Bolshevik all in a ruling coalition.


Next going to look at the international situation around the time of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.

8/?

The October Revolution inspired socialists and Marxists throughout the world to follow a similar path towards revolution, Lenin and Zinoviev utilized this in the creation of the Communist International or the Third International (henceforth called the Comintern) in 1919. The base of the Comintern was formed by splits from mainstream Social Democratic or Socialist parties who supported the Russian Revolution and Marxism, it is in the period of 1919-1922 that most communist parties in the world were founded, and organized in the Comintern.

The Comintern's job was also to organize communist parties where there was no basis for them, most Asian and Middle Eastern communist parties were formed by their propaganda and organizing (including those of China and Indochina).

The Russian Revolution inspired numerous uprisings outside Russia. In Germany the Spartacist League (a split from the Social Democratic Party) led the German Revolution with Karl Liebknigt and Rosa Luxemburg at its head. In France and the UK massive workers uprisings took place and there was a lot of defection in the army. In Iran, communists in the North of the country established their own (failed) government and attempted to start a revolution. The Hungarian Soviet Republic was briefly established, massive waves of strikes in Italy (Bienna Rosa), and communist led peasant uprisings in Romania and Bulgaria.

9/? things are going to go a little slower now as I'm busy/might leave soon.

1919-Poland and the Soviet Union went to war, the Soviet Union lost the war and was forced to cede the western portions of Ukraine and Belarus to Poland in 1921 (these are the territories later annexed in 1939).

1922-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics formally declared, head of state is Mikhail Kalinin but real authority rests in the leadership of the Communist Party.

1921-New Economic Policy initiated. NEP is a form of regulated capitalism where the Soviet Union sought to rebuild its industry and infrastructure and put an end to the famine in the country. Land was redistributed from the wealthy landlords to the peasantry. With the death of Lenin, this is where the inter party struggle for power becomes much more pronounced.


The

>>45724
This is awesome! I really enjoy content like this and support it fully! Thanks for your contribution!

10/?

The division in the party becomes much more pronounced with the death of Lenin. Eventually it devolves into three main factions. The Left Opposition, led by Trotsky, the Right Opposition, led by Bukharin, and the centrists, led by Stalin.

Trotsky called for an ending to the New Economic Policy and wanted to bring Socialism to the rest of Europe (and therefore, the world) basically by invading in support of rebellious workers. The Left Opposition believed that it was impossible to build socialism in one country, so the Soviet Union must export it.

The Right Opposition was based more in the interests of the peasantry and led by Nikolai Bukharin. They argued for the continuation of the New Economic Policy and against collectivization and state farms, but were supportive of the idea of building Socialism in the USSR before launching it into a global war it couldn't win.

The Centrists were led by Stalin and based in the interests of the urban workers, but not advocating the radical opportunist policies of the Left Opposition.

The Right Opposition and Centrists allied for a majority to remove the Left Opposition from having an opportunity at getting power. After this, Trotsky became a thorn in the side of the party, in 1929 in his final attempt before getting kicked out of the party to have it adopt his program, it was voted down 750,000 to 4,000.

>>45728
Thank you for your support, I love your postings (and love that someone is actually reading this).

11/?

Trotsky eventually alienated his most powerful supporters, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who along with Bukharin and Stalin completely marginalized him, and thus the NEP continued. Most of the party rejected his theories of "permanant revolution", and to quote Lenin:

“The old participants in the Marxist movement in Russia know Trotsky very well, and there is no need to discuss him for their benefit. But the younger generation of workers do not know him, and it is therefore necessary to discuss him. [….] Trotsky was an ardent Iskrist in 1901—03, and Ryazanov described his role at the Congress of 1903 as ‘Lenin’s cudgel’. At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik, i. e., he deserted from the Iskrists to the Economists. He said that ‘between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf’. In 1904—05, he deserted the Mensheviks and occupied a vacillating position, now co-operating with Martynov (the Economist), now proclaiming his absurdly Left ‘permanent revolution’ theory. In 1906—07, he approached the Bolsheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that he was in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg. In the period of disintegration, after long ‘non-factional’ vacillation, he again went to the right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc with the liquidators. He has now deserted them again, although in substance he reiterates their shoddy ideas” (CW 20, 346-7).

Riding on the support of the Right Opposition and Center, and with the Left Opposition either pacified or removed from power, Stalin rose to the head of the Communist Party in 1926. Once the Centists under Stalin were in power, however, the old leaders of the Communist Party formed the United Opposition, bridging right and left, against Stalin, who had put forth radical plans for industrialization the Right disagreed with, while refusing to launch the infant Soviet Union into war like the Left wanted.

Trotsky was expelled from the party completely and forced into exile. Internationally, this led to a rift in the world communist movement and the foundation of the International Left Opposition, which would go onto call itself the Fouth International.

This may go on hold until tommorrow, a friend is bugging me to go out.

12/?

Stalin's rise to power leads to the Centrist (henceforth called Marxist-Leninist or Stalinist) domination of the party for the next 30 years. Stalin introduces a new economic plan, the New Economic Policy is to be ended and a massive industrialization and collectivization program is put forth to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial and economic power.

In late 1929, the NEP is formally ended and the First Five Year Plan (1928-1933, shit overlaps) is put into action. The developments of the 1930's are going to go on for several posts, so brace yourself (or run away).

Every single improvement in industry was meticulously planned, with foreign experts coming into the country (during this time, for the first time in American history, there were more people leaving the country than entering it, almost all to the Soviet Union), massive propaganda campaigns, quotas, and the building of infrastructure that still stands today and actually makes up the majority of all infrastructure in modern CIS states).

Ignoring all the increases in quality of life, lets just look at the production developments between 1928 and 1937:

Coal - from 36 million tonnes to 130 million tonnes
Iron - from 3 million tonnes to 15 million tonnes
Oil - from 2 million tonnes to 29 million tonnes
Electricity - from 5,000 million to 36,000 million kilowatts

I'll continue this in another post, I have to go now.

Leaving now, but coming up:

Holodomor
Industrialization
Great purge
Winter War
Great Patriotic War
Post-war tensions
Korean War
Stalin's death and power struggle
Khruschev's reforms
Brezhnev doctrine and stagnation
Gorbachev and decline
Yeltsin and collapse

Right on, dude, your postings are super-informative and interesting, keep it up!

13/?

The First Five Year Plan was rather sloppily implemented compared to the second Five Year Plan, largely because it was the first intensive industrialization plan in Russia since the 1880's under the Tsar (which was much less intense), and a lack of engineers, economists, and even just basic blueprints for factory production.

The main focus of the first Five Year Plan was the building of heavy industry as a basis for a modernized society, this meant that the peasantry (80% of the population) was going to be hit the hardest by it.

One of the main products manufactured during this time were tractors, tractors were needed to improve agricultural output, which during the plan ended up dropping by 30%. As part of the incentive to encourage collectivization amongst peasants, tractors were only distributed to collective farms and state owned farms.

Railways, bridges, canals, roads, and dams were amongst the things built during this period, Soviet Central Asia went from a largely nomadic society to a coalition of actual nationalities with their own culture and now settled instead of nomadic or based in small villages. Most infrastructure in the former Soviet Union was built during this period.

The equal wage that was implemented after the revolution was abolished as not encouraging hard work, and replaced with a piece labor system, where workers would be payed based on how much they produce rather than for the mere fact of showing up

Stealing stats on industrialization from another site:

"In order to free labor for industry and to secure food for the swelling urban population Stalin sped up the collectivization of farming. In 1929 there were 25,000,000 small peasant farms, by 1952 these had been transformed into 100,000 large and highly mechanized collective farms.

The resulting upturn in manufacturing output and national income was something unprecedented in the history of industrialization. Russian manufacturing boomed during the great depression. If one examines the period of the two five year plans of 1928 to 1937 Russian national income rose from 24.4 to 96.3 billion rubles, coal output increased from 35.4 to 128 million tons, steel production from 4 to 17.7 million tons, electricity output rose 700%, machine-tool production 20,000% and tractor production (factories that could be easily converted in tank production) rose 40,000%."

Despite the doubling of life expectancy and improvements in working conditions and healthcare, in 1932 during the first Five Year Plan there was a harvest failure in the Ukraine and a massive protest by peasants (largely kulaks but including a significant amount of middle peasants) throughout the country but focused in the Ukraine.

Protesting against collectivization in the Ukraine (which, even as recent as 1880, 80% of the grain in Europe came through Odessa), kulaks and other peasants burned collective storages of their crops and slaughtered up to 50% of the entire livestock in the Soviet Union. This was coupled with assaults by rebel peasant bands throughout the 1930's that averaged around 31 individual attacks a day in the entire Soviet Union.

The famine, intensified by the actions of the Ukranian peasants, left the Soviet government with the choice of either feeding the countryside or feeding the cities, going back to 1905 and 1917 it's easy to see why they chose the cities.

Internationally, the famine gained worldwide acclaim as six million Ukranians being killed (the number is closer to 2-4 million nationwide, mostly due to disease intensified by limited food supply) and became known as the Holodomor. Ukrainian exiles in the United States and Canada declared that it was a genocide, using pictures from the 1921 Volga famine as "evidence" of the Holodomor.

Shit, looking for a good picture to use for this I even found a Wikipedia page with fake photographs used: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Holodomor_hoax_photos

I think it's an interesting side note that pre-1942 newspapers and articles mentioning the Holodomor claim 6 million deaths, but in the aftermath of the Holocaust the number was bumped up to 7-12 million to make it somehow "worse" than the Holocaust.

>>45729

>invading in support of rebellious workers.
>launching it into a global war

Do you have a source for that ? I'm no trotskyist but it doesn't seem right. I never read about that theory being summed up by "let's go to war". There's better ways to support the foreign communists.
According to wikipedia, one of the main points of contention on that ground was the chinese revolution. Stalin wanted to support the KMT's leadership and military power directly, while Trotsky wanted to support and push the communists to do their own thing as soon as possible.

>>45731
Kamenev and Zinoviev were not supporters of Trotsky. They sided with Stalin against him bfeore 1925, and only allied with him when Stalin turned on them after Trotsky was pushed aside. They were all following their own interests and ambitions.
And that quote from Lenin about Trotsky changing his mind is from 1914. Lenin changed his mind about Trotsky after the revolution.

15/whatthefuckdidigetmyselfinto?

The Comintern during the late 20's/ and early 30's was led by Zinoviev, an ally of Trotsky after the Stalinist takeover in the Communist Party. The Comintern preached a doctrine that said the revolutionary movement was in its Third Period. The First being the wave of revolutions 1917-1923, the second being the building up of the socialist state and of the socialist movement worldwide through the Comintern, and the Third period, now with the Great Depression, being the collapse of capitalism and the coming wave of revolutions to undo it.

As part of this doctrine, parties aligned with the Comintern refused to cooperate with the Social Democratic parties of their countries, dismissing social democracy as Social Fascism, saying both were equally against working class interests. It was during this period that the Nazis came to power in Germany, a country with a strong, popular, and organized Communist Party with even its own paramilitary that had just had a failed revolution a decade prior. The rise of the Nazis and the failure of the Communists to unite with the Social Democrats led to the complete reversal of the "social fascist" denunciation and the removal of Zinoviev from his position (he was executed soon after for a different reason).

The Comintern at this point saw fascism as the largest threat to the workers movement and to the Soviet Union. Having already lost Italy and Germany to fascist movements with fascist sympathizing states across Eastern Europe and rising German military might and aggressive behavior, they consolidated their former position. The Comintern from this point practiced the Popular Front method, allying with the social democratic parties they formerly denounced against fascism.

France was in danger of going to the right, and later Spain would be too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_French_legislative_elections

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_general_election,_1936

In Spain in 1936, I'm sure as most of you know, there was an attempted coup that resulted in a 3 year civil war that perfectly demonstrated the need and practice of the Popular Front. The Comintern also organized the International Brigades to fight on behalf of the Popular Front.

>>45740

The Chinese Communist Party was in infancy, by the time it actually did anything (1926) Trotsky was long irrelevant within the party, while the KMT was still seen as a "progressive" force (going back to Sun Yat Sen). Trotsky was more referring to Germany in the late 10's/early 20's, which had undergone a proletarian revolution.

I don't think I implied Kamanev and Zinoviev were full on supporters of Trotsky, rather that they allied with him against Stalin, not to advance one common interest.


>>45741
Disregard most of the Zinoviev stuff in this, mistake on my part.

>>45740

Sorry, didn't respond to your source inquiry.

Trotsky refused to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovisk or any other attempt to make peace with Germany, he wanted to continue the war and hopefully assist the German working classes in their revolution.

Also, though the Trotskyites like to drum up Lenin's testament, when Lenin's last writings were read to the Politburo there was an entire section bashing Trotsky as being an opportunist, he stormed out of the room after hearing it, not too important but I think it's funny for the "hurr Trotsky should've become General Secretary" people.

“What a swine this Trotsky is — Left phrases and a bloc with the Right . . ! He ought to be exposed” (Lenin, CW #35 285).

etc

>>45742
Kamenev and Zinoviev formed the united opposition with Trotsky in the spring 1926. So I assume Trotsky was still relevant at that time. Enough at least to take part in a debate about what to do about the chinese affairs, though obviously he wasn't influent enough to prevent Stalin's ideas about it to be implemented. They weren't expelled until late 1927.

>his most powerful supporters, Zinoviev and Kamenev

This could have been misinterpreted, so I wanted to add that precision.

>>45743
Hm... I searched the three texts of Lenin's "testament"for trotsky's name, and the only criticism I found was in one sentence :

>He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.

And that line about swine is from a letter of feb 1917, that doesn't sound so severe without cuts.

>it was just as sad to read about the bloc between Trotsky and the Right for the struggle against N. Iv. What a swine this Trotsky is—Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right against the Zimmerwald Left!! He ought to be exposed (by you) if only in a brief letter to Sotsial-Demokrat!

Who's N. Iv. by the way ?

16/?

On the Purges.

For starters, purges were not unique to the 1930's, going back at least to 1920. From the Smolensk Archives in the Library of Congress a great deal can be learned about Western Russia during the 1920's and 30's (they were captured by the Germans, then eventually captured by the Americans from the Germans).
My source for the following is from J. Arch Getty, a non communist historian

Reasons for expulsion from the party in 1929:
Defects in personal conduct 22%
Alien elements or connection thereto 17%
Passivity 17%
Criminal offences 12%
Violations of Party discipline 10%
Other 22%

Defects in personal conduct would be the practice of things that were considered alien to the "New Man" of communist society. overlapping with Violations of Party Discipline. These would be things like alcoholism, drug abuse, spousal abuse, religious practices, corruption, anti-semitism, or even ridiculous things like practicing a non sanctioned kind of art or writing.

Passitivity is obvious, members who sign up and never go to meetings, as is criminal activity, the "other" category, my guess is as good as yours but I'd guess that's where the majority of actual political opponents would end up.

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union the Party had often been swelled with the ranks of opportunists and reactionaries seeking to make something of themselves either politically or to improve their economic situation, these were the people targeted the most along with corrupt bureaucrats (corruption was widespread, anyone who lived in the former USSR after Stalin would tell you this).

1933 purges:

Moral corruption, careerist, bureaucrat 17.5
Alien elements / hiding alien elements 16.5
Violation of Party discipline 20.9
Passivity 23.2
Other 17.9

>>45746

"Lenin's Testament" isn't about Trotsky, it basically bashes everyone in the party and calls for Stalin to be removed from power, I was mentioning it because Trotskyites like to use that when after his death it was read he bashed Trotsky hard too. Wasn't using it as a political point, just a little factoid.

“[A]fter Lenin’s death we, nineteen men of the Executive Committee, sat together and anxiously awaited the advice which our leader would give us from the tomb. Lenin’s widow had brought us the letter. Stalin read it aloud to us. As he did so, nobody made a sound. When it came to speak of Trotsky, the letter […] said: ‘His un-Bolshevik past is not an accident.’ All at once Trotsky interrupted the reading and asked: ‘What was that?’ The sentence was repeated. These were the only words that were spoken during that solemn hour” (Ludwig 364).

17/?

In 1935 it was discovered that over 200,000 party cards were in circulation without owners, either due to being lost or their owners being expelled from the party, with this as a basis, a policy of self criticism was put forth in the party, where members would call eachother out on a basis of whether or not they belonged in the party based on their past, current actions, or personal practices and political beliefs, all to maintain the ideological unity of the party.

This, of course, was a rather flawed system, anyone could call another person out and that person would risk expulsion if they could not defend themselves properly. For all its seeming flaws it went over "okay", "okay" in that the party managed to mostly get through it without any major chaos. 9.1% of investigated party members (170,000) out of 1.8 million) were expelled, mostly due to corruption during the NEP period, other criminal acts, or 'moral' crimes (alcoholism etc). Of course, party membership around this time was over 3 million, so that's a large number of people investigated for supposed violations.

This is all leading up to the Great Purge of 1936-1937 under Yezhov, I'll get to that next.

18/ohgodimgoingtokillmyself?

Sergei Kirov, leader of the Leningrad (St Petersburg) Soviet was a close ally of Joseph Stalin and assassinated in 1934. The assassination was used as a catalyst for the Great Purge of 1936-1937. No party member or official was exempt from the purge, as had been the case in the 1933 and 1935 purges (allowing people with enough power or influence to skirt being analyzed), targeted at bureaucracy and largely the potential Fifth Column within the Soviet Union in case of a war with Germany and Japan.

The Great Purge was a chaotic time, due to the intense persecution of people perceived as corrupt or anti-Party, there was a lot of finger pointing and blaming of others. For instance, if a party member wanted to take the heat off them for alleged misdoings, they would point at another party member who would then be assumed /more/ guilty because of the blame of other party members. It was fucking retarded and you can see how it got out of hand rather quickly.

Yagoda was the original head of the NKVD who oversaw the purges, and eventually was called out himself as being corrupt and executed during a number of show trials and replaced with Yezhov, who went even more extreme with the purge. Many innocent people or people guilty of only the slightest infractions were sent to the gulags to do forced labor on crimes they weren't guilty of or at least didn't deserve prison for. The Purge actually weakened the Soviet Union greatly, going far beyond its original intentions of eliminating a fifth column and instead attacking decent people who other party leaders had pointed the blame at to get the inquisitors off their backs. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other major leaders of the Bolshevik party were all shot after a series of show trials.

Stalin realized things had gotten out of hand and had Yezhov replaced with Beria, who ended the Great Purge. Yezhov was demoted to a minor position outside the party and eventually arrested and shot when it was discovered all the things he had done.

>>45748
I don't want to pollute the thread, but that doesn't seem right.
That sentence, in the letter, was

>I shall just recall that the October episode with Zinoviev and Kamenev was, of course, no accident, but neither can the blame for it be laid upon them personally, any more than non-Bolshevism can upon Trotsky.

The blame is lifted from him before he is mentionned. Why should he be shocked to be exonerated ? Everyone knew he wasn't always a bolshevik.
This book (emil ludwig, leaders of europe) may be wrong. It's from 1934, and the source for that, Karl Radek, was in a relatively high position after having been expelled with zinoviev and the others, deported, and readmitted in 1930. Also, it isn't available on the internet so I can't check for much more context, but it doesn't mention Trotsky storming out of the room here.

(And if someone else was curious, N. Iv. is Bukharin. Thankfully russians didn't have a lot of names to choose from then, so guessing Nikolai Ivanovitch was easy.)

>>45752

You may be right, either way as I said before I don't consider it to be important, just interesting.

19/?

The Purges also affected the military, almost 40,000 military officers were stripped of their positions, most of whom because of their age or poor quality and organization, but many because of their past allegiance. The officer corps of the Red Army had a significant amount of former Tsarist officers who held no sympathy towards communism, but rather served in the military as careerists. The goal of the military's purge was to both eliminate the old and inept, and to strip from power (and arrest many) officers who were hostile to Communism.

This was done in expectation of a German invasion of the country, which would come under the guise of anti-communism and "liberating" Russia, despite Generalplan Ost. The fear was that the officers hostile to communism would defect and join the German invaders, turning the Red Army against itself. History will show, with the defection of General Vlasov and several other prominent officers to the invading forces (the "Russian Liberation Army"), that even the most intensive purge still missed people, one can only imagine what would happen if the purge had not been carried out.

In 1939, with the intention of delaying the war with Germany as well as gaining her former territories, Germany and the Soviet Union entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Two weeks (or 10 days, can't remember) after the Germans invaded Poland, the Soviets invaded from the East and took back the territories of Western Ukraine and Belarus they had lost in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919.

The Soviet Union also forced the Baltic Countries in 1939, under nominally fascist governments, to accept occupation through false treaties that led to a de facto annexation. In these countries, contrary to popular belief, the Soviets were greeted as a liberating force from the fascist government and global economic depression (this changed with occupation policies, where the population became more hostile). In Latvia, upon hearing the Soviets were coming, the people of RIga marched in the street and overthrew their own government, welcoming the Soviets.

The Soviet Union also annexed Moldova, which had been annexed by Romania previously, and established the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, the minorities of Moldova (Jews, gypsies, Russians, etc) welcomed the Soviets with open arms and even came out in the street and harassed leaving Romanian troops.*

*Keep in mind that, though it seems like I'm just saying "yay everyone loves the Soviet Union", these were all countries where the Russian Revolution had taken place as well, as they were part of the empire at the time, so the memory of the revolution is still in their national consciousness, equating to support of the Soviet Union, not so much doctrinaire Marxism-Leninism practiced by the majority of the populace.

20/?

1939-1940-the Winter War started by the Soviet Union. Foreign minister Molotov pressured the Finns into ceding territory near Leningrad, to push the border back 25km to ensure it security in the case of a German invasion, and several islands for military bases in the Baltic (keep in mind, relations between Finland and the USSR had been hostile for a while, the Whites winning the Finnish Civil War and executing 30,000 communists). In exchange, the Soviet Union would give a large amount of sparsely inhabited territory in East Karelia.

The Finns rejected this plan, so the Soviet Union staged a false flag attack by shelling a small border village. Finland was invaded, about 25% of the Finnish population, memories fresh from the Civil War, actually supported the Soviet Invasion, but the vast majority of the people in the areas where the Soviets fought were completely nationalist and anti-communist (leftists being in the South of the country, far away from the front, most fighting being in rural areas), giving extra morale to the soldiers and partisans fighting the Soviets.

The Winter War was a complete failure, due to the incompetence of new military leaders promoted in the stead of those who had been purged earlier. It lead to a complete rethinking of Soviet military planning, and more severe training for its officers.


Does anyone want me to continue? I'm probably just going to brush over WW2.

>>45754
pretty interesting imo

>>45754

>The Winter War was a complete failure

Despite the fact that all territory demanded before the war was handed over at the end of it?
Extremely costly? sure, but still a military victory.

>inb4 but hurt finns.

>>45763

You're right, they gained Karelia and parts of Lapland, but in military terms they took severe losses, they were expecting a rather quick victory.

Skipping over WW2, but the Soviet Union suffered the most destruction of any country during the war, and from the years 1942-1944 was essentially the only country fighting the Soviet Union, the Western front being stalled.

1944-In preparation for the formation of the United Nations (formed the next year) and better relations with the West, the Comintern is dissolved, having largely outlived its usefulness.

1945-Germany surrenders and is occupied by the Allies, split into four zones of occupation. The French, British, Americans, and Soviets each take a part of Germany, as well as Austria.

1945-1946-Population transfers of Germans from East Prussia and parts of modern Poland, as well as the Sudetenland and other Eastern European countries, around 500,000 Germans die during this.

Starting around this time, nuclear scientists sympathetic to the Soviet Union begin passing information on America's nuclear technology to the USSR so they can catch up to the West, there's a list of them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies

1946-Iran Crisis. Iran had been invaded by the Soviet union and USSR to prevent it from aligning with the Axis and to secure its oil. The Soviet Union occupied the North-West regions of Kurdistan and Iranian Azerbaijan where they had set up "people's" governments. The Republic of Mahabad (Kurdistan) and the Azerbaijan People's Government were established, as well as the Tudeh Party, a Communist Party for Iran who's membership reached about 70,000 soon after.

The Soviet Union and UK agreed to leave Iran early in 1946, but the Soviet Union continued to occupy the country past the date within its two puppet states. The USSR finally negotiated terms for withdrawal with Iran, in exchange for leaving and not supporting the separatist movements, they would receive half the income from Iranian oil (which at this point was going to the UK through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now British Petroleum). The Soviet Union withdrew from the country, but new elections held in Iran put a right wing government in place, due to being boycotted by the Tudeh Party and other liberal and left organizations, which refused to ratify the treaty, so the Soviet Union never received the oil.

>>45772

Invaded by the Soviet Union and UK*

22/?

1946-Greek Civil War kicks up, due to an earlier agreement about Spheres of Influence in post-war Europe, the Soviet Union doesn't send aid to ELAS and the Greek Communist Party, as Greece had been declared 90% in the Anglosphere, 10% in the Soviet sphere, this is also why the West didn't intervene in Romania, Poland, or Bulgaria supporting anti-communist partisans.

Yugoslavia and Albania, two countries that had liberated themselves from occupation through Communist partisan work, sent aid, but the Communists lost the civil war.

1947-Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) founded, essentially as the foundation of a new Comintern but only including parties in government. That is, the Eastern Bloc and the Italian and French communist parties, who entered government after the War.

1947-Paris Peace Treaties, the minor allies (including Finland) of Germany are all forced to pay reparations, mostly to the Soviet Union. During this time Stalin also discusses invading Spain and overthrowing Fransisco Franco, but is talked out of it by Western leaders.

1947-Marshall Plan starts, nations of the Eastern Bloc are excluded from receiving aid despite being hit the hardest by the war. Through the United States does this under the guise of "Democracy", they force Italy and France to expel their democratically elected communists from government in exchange for aid.
Under this plan the US also gives aid to the Greek government, taking over for the near bankrupted UK, and Turkey, securing another regional ally.

23/?

1948-new governments are established in North and South Korea. In the South there was a left wing armed insurrection against US occupation and the South Korean government starting in 1947. Elections are held in both countries, in the North it is won almost exlusively by the Workers Party of Korea and 2 smaller leftist parties (which still rule Korea today, pretty much garunteed to be fake though the Workers Party was the most popular party). In the South, the elections are boycotted by leftist organizations as part of the ongoing insurrection against the state.

1948-Tito-Stalin Split. Josip Bronz Tito, leader of Yugoslavia and former leader of the Partisan forces that freed the country, is expelled from the Cominform (leading to its dissolution) for ideological differences and revisionism. Yugoslavia ceases its support of the Greek Communist Party and adopts a kind of Market Socialism, another reason for the split was Tito's wish to annex Bulgaria in a union of the South Slavs, and even having designs on Albania and more on Trieste (part of Italy).

1949-despite numerous attempts to reunify Germany by the Soviet Union, the Federal Republic of Germany is created in the French, British, and American zones, which will be called West Germany from now on. Stalin attempted to unify the country several times, and even into the 1950's attempted to, but one of his conditions was that Germany would not be able to join ant alliance with the former Allies, thus keeping it out of NATO. In response, the German Democratic Republic is created in the Soviet occupation zone.

1948-Berlin crisis. In an attempt to force the West to leave Berlin, the city is blocked off from resupply, as it is in the middle of the Soviet occupation zone, the Berlin Airlift supplies the city though and it proves to be a massive propaganda defeat for the Soviet Union,

>>45772

MORE!

>1953-Stalin dies, I cry evrytiem

Me too broseph :(

Where do the Jews fit in?

>>45801
ovens

>>45802
hahaahahaaahaha

This thread needs more Stalin. Also, bumping for general excellence.

Birthday was yesterday, I'll get back to this tomorrow and finish it up, have IRL shit to do. nb

>>45828
Hey, hey.
You should quit stallin' and get on with it.
I jest I jest, happy birthday dude and thanks for being such a good poster on /his/.

>>45828
Happy birthday man, have a good one. Ill drink to your birthday tonight at teh bar.

>>45828
It's been 4 weeks. WHERE YOU BE!?

bumping to save this shit from deletion holy shit

>>45801
Winston Churchill wrote about that topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNcERXGcpEY

Sup, comrades. Any questions on why communism/Marxism/socialism is apeshit and so? Russian here.

>>48517
Considering how you're probably gonna confuse all the terms and the fact that your Russian yet probably too young to have any experience with Communism/Marxist-Leninism (which by the way isn't applicable as a catch-all term for the many types of socialism), no I don't wanna hear what you think socialism/Marxism is.

I've read him, I know what Marxism really is and it never saw itself in the Soviet Union anyways, so your description would probably be pretty useless. Especially considering Marxist socialism is scientific and libertarian.

>>48517
Дaвaй, рaсскaжы нaм бaeк o тoм кaк при Путинe всё стaлo лучшe.

>>48533

all that ive learned from this post is that google translate is fucking awful.

>>48518

>Marxist socialism is scientific

so you can account for all variables then eh?

bumping so this isn't deleted