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Hint
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Answer
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How many delegates arrived for the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 26 October 1917?
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670
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How many of these delegates voted in favour of a socialist government?
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500
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Why were the Mensheviks and right-wing SRs dismayed?
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The majority of seats for a new executive committee to carry out the socialist government went to the Bolsheviks and more extreme left-wing SRs.
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What did these 'moderates' then do in protest?
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They walked out of the congress, leaving a Bolshevik and left-wing SR coalition in control (this action simply played into the Bolsheviks' hands).
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What was the 'famous' quote Trotsky shouted at the retiring delegates?
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'You're finished, you pitiful bunch of bankrupts. Get out of here to where you belong - in the dustbin of history.'
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What did the executive committee establish as the new government and who was it comprised exclusively of?
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The executive committee established the 'Soviet of People's Comissars' or 'Sovnarkom' as the new government. It was comprised exclusively of Bolsheviks.
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What was Lenin's role in this new government?
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Chairman
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What was Trotsky's role in this new government?
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Comissar for Foreign Affairs
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What were the decrees that Lenin introduced designed to fulfil his promises of change and win support?
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Decree on peace promised an end to war
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Decree on land abolished private ownership of land and legitimised peasant seizures of land
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Workers' control decree - workers right to 'supervise' management
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Nationality decree promised self-determination to parts of the former empire
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New legal system of elected people's courts
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Government outlawed sex discrimination
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Military decree removed class-ranks, saluting and military decorations from the army
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Decrees on the Church nationalised Church land and removed marriage and divorce from Church control
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Nationalisation of banks ended the private flow of capital
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What did many civil servants do?
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Many civil servants refused to serve under the Bolsheviks
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What did bankers do?
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Bankers refused to provide finance and had to made to give their reserves under threat of armed intervention.
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What were some of Lenin's other means of combating opposition?
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A propaganda campaign against political and 'class' enemies
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The closure of anti-Bolshevik newspapers
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A purge of civil service
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The establishment of the 'All-Russian Commission for the suppression of Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation' or 'Cheka'
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Leading Kadets, right-wing Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were rounded up and imprisoned in December
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Which party won the most seats for the Constituent Assembly that Lenin surprisingly held elections to.
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The SRs
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What was Lenin's completely in-character reaction to these election results?
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He was appalled and declared that 'we must not be deceived by the election figures. Elections prove nothing.'
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He argued the Constituent Assembly was a mere remnant of bourgeois parliamentary democracy and to accept its rulings would be to take a step back in Russia's historical development
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What were the Constituent Assembly statistics for the Socialist Revolutionaries?
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21.8 million votes
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410 seats
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53% of the vote
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What were the Constituent Assembly statistics for the Bolsheviks?
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10.0 million votes
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175 seats
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24% of the vote
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How many days did the Constituent Assembly meet for?
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1 day only - 5 January 1918 - after which Lenin dissolved it
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What did Lenin believe the Bolsheviks understood better than the proletariat?
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The needs of the proletariat themselves
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Which country did the Bolsheviks believe that a similar 'revolution' to theirs was very close to happening in?
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Germany
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What were the Bolsheviks doing to the main German Government at this time?
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They were both strengthening and weakening it - they were committed to rousing the German soldiers and workers against their imperial government but were simultaneously committed to pursuing peace with that government
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What was Lenin's view of the German peace terms in which they wanted much Russian land?
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Lenin held a pragmatic view that argued for the acceptance of the German terms
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What was the peace treaty called?
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Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
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When was it signed?
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3rd March 1918
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What did Russia lose from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?
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Territory - Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bessarabia
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Semi-independent governments in Georgia, Belarus, the Ukraine
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Population - lost a sixth (62 million people)
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Land - 2 million square kilometres of land - including area that had produced almost a third of Russia's agricultural produce
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26% of Russian railway lines
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74% of iron ore & coal supplies
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How did Lenin's government go against his pre October 1917 vision on what a government should be?
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In 'State and Revolution', Lenin suggested that 'the people' would readily see that a Bolshevik government ruled in their interests and would support it. He wanted an expansion of democracy, with 'the people' managing their own affairs and a reduction in state bureaucracy.
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The Petrograd Soviet contained non-Bolshevik socialists so Lenin side-lined it and formed the Bolshevik-only Sovnarkom. It ruled by decree without seeking the Soviet's approval.
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The Bolshevik state became a one-party state
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What happened when civilians demonstrated against Lenin's dispersal of the Constituent Assembly?
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They were fired on and 12 were killed
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What happened when the Bolsheviks formally adopted the title of 'Communist Party'?
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From then on they governed alone. All other groupings whether former opponents or allies, were treated as 'enemies'.
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During the Russian Civil War, new central controls were brought in to manage the economy - what was this known as?
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War Communism
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