The Bolshevik Revolution
History 104 / April 1, 2013

I. Lenin the Bolshevik
          A. The party as the “vanguard” of the proletariat
                   1. The essential political question: “who whom?”
                   2. Strict, conspiratorial party organization
          B. World revolution is inevitable; Germany will be its locus
II. Two revolutions in 1917
          A. The February Revolution
                   1. War-weariness and disgust with the tsar
                   2. “Dual power,” March – October 1917
                             > The Provisional Government
                             > Soviets of workers, soldiers, & peasants
          B. Lenin’s slogans and strategy
                   1. Keep the Bolsheviks away from responsible posts
                   2. “Bread, land, peace”
                   3. “All power to the Soviets!”
          C. The October Revolution: a coup in St. Petersburg
III. Consolidating Bolshevik power
          A. Civil War between “Reds” and “Whites” (1918-1920)
                   1.  Trotsky fashions a “Red Army”
                   2. “War communism”: requisitions and terror
                   3. The Allied intervention
          B. The New Economic Policy (ca. 1921-1928)
                   1. Mixing market elements with socialism
                   2. Cultural experimentation
                   3. A new political unit: the Soviet Union (1924)
          C. Stalin’s “revolution from above” (ca. 1928-1939)
                   1. “socialism in one country”
                   2. The First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932)
                   3. Creating collective farms
                   4. Purging the “Old Bolsheviks”
                   5. The cult of personality