communism and the new russia

The Tsars, Lenin & Communism
In 1547, Ivan IV of the Muscovite dynasty, was formally crowned ‘tsar of all Russia’. His ascension ceremony marked the first time that a Duke of Moscow was formally called Tsar of Russia. Peter the Great was the first tsar to venture outside of Muscovy. He imported technical experts, initialised military academies and built a navy as part of his vision of a new Russia. Peter’s daughter, Catherine the Great, recognized the potential longterm problems caused by the abuses of serfdom in Russia. In 1767 she issued proposed legal and administrative reforms but they were not carried out because of the opposition of the nobility. A Cossack rebellion in 1774 made her realise that liberal reforms would only encourage rebellion and she abandoned all attempts to reform the feudal system in Russia.

Catherine’s son Paul’s heavy-handed approach and regressive policies set back Russia’s progression. When he was murdered in 1801, Russians (both peasants and nobility) were overjoyed. Tsar Alexander I reversed most of his father’s laws and abolished the secret police. It was upon his death that the first attempt at overthrowing the tsars occurred, unsuccessfully.

In January 1905, discontent erupted again and workers marched to Palace Square to deliver a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. His troops fired on the crowd and thousands were killed – this became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. Despite this uprising being crushed, World War I was the final straw for the oppressed masses. In February 1917 the Petrograd garrison joined workers in an uprising that forced the abdication of Nicholas II in Pskov, ending 300 years of the Romanov dynasty.

Communism and the new Russia
On 24 October 1917 Bolshevik leaders stormed the Winter Palace and seized power from the Provisional Government. During the confusion, the Second Congress of Soviets declared the soviets the governing bodies of Russia and named the Council of People’s Commissars to serve as the cabinet. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) became chairman of this council. Leon Trotsky took the post of commissar of foreign affairs and Joseph Stalin became commissar of nationalities. Lenin promised peace, land and bread to the peasants and power to the workers. He began shaping the first Communist state, following the beliefs of Marx. In their
Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the term communism to describe a final stage of socialism in which all class differences would disappear and humankind would live in harmony.

Lenin’s New Economic Policy, or NEP, brought about prosperity which allowed the young Soviet government to consolidate its political position and rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Lenin also converted Russia to the Gregorian calendar - from midnight on 31 January 1918. The next day was declared to be February 14 and is why the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on 7 January. The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was formed in 1922, when Stalin (Communist Party General Secretary) forced the non-Russian republics into federation with the Russian Republic. Lenin’s death in 1924 was followed by an extended struggle for power but by the latter part of the decade, Joseph Stalin had emerged as the victor and he immediately changed the course of the country.

He replaced the New Economic Policy with Five-Year Plans in 1928 and collective farming at roughly the same time. The Soviet Union changed from being predominantly farming to an industrial power by the end of the 1930s. Stalin ordered Orthodox Icons to be replaced by pictures of Lenin, and many churches were torn down or converted. Stalin laid the groundwork for the formation of the Warsaw Pact and established the USSR as one of the two major world powers. It remained as that for nearly four decades after he had died in 1953. Tens of millions of lives were lost during Stalin’s tyrannical rule.

The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (1985 - 91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics.

Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and market economy to replace the strict social, political and economic controls of the Communist period. Today, Russia is a federation with executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. President Vladimir Putin has served the country since December 1999 and was re-elected in March 2004 for another 4-year term of office.