- •Unit 13 (Part 1) Soviet Russia: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Realities (1917–1953)
- •I. Explain the notions of “utopia” and “dystopia”. How are these notions related to the Soviet period in Russian history?
- •II. Read the text to get the general understanding of it and explain the words in bold:
- •III. Fill in the prepositions where necessary:
- •IV. Paraphrase or explain the following word combinations, find how they are used in the text. Make up your own examples with them:
- •V. Summarize the information presented in the text. Text 1 The Provisional Government, Petrograd Soviet, and Dual Power
- •I. Scan the text. Explain the words in bold, use them in your own examples.
- •II. Fill in the prepositions where necessary:
- •III. Discuss the following questions:
- •IV. Summarize the information presented in the text. Text 2
- •Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the November Revolution
- •I. Scan the text and explain the words in bold:
- •II. Discuss the following questions:
- •(2) Securing Bolshevik Power
- •I. Scan the text to get general understanding of it. Suggest English equivalents in the appropriate form for the words given in brackets:
- •II. Make up five questions covering the major information presented in the text. Let your partner answer them. Text 3 Russia’s Civil War
- •II. Find the English equivalents in the text and use them in the sentences of your own:
- •III. Discuss the following questions:
- •IV. Summarize the information presented in the text. Text 4 The New Economic Policy and the Ban on “Factions”
- •I. Study the text, change the words or phrases in bold to their synonyms listed below:
- •II. Explain or paraphrase the following notions, use them in the sentences of your own:
- •III. Mark the following sentences as True or False:
- •IV. Write five or six summary statements about what you have just read. Then in groups share what has been written. Text 5 Old and New Problems, 1922–1924
- •I. Explain or paraphrase the words and phrases in bold, use them in the sentences of your own:
- •II. Discuss the following questions:
- •Text 6 Lenin’s Last Struggle
- •I. Explain or paraphrase the words and phrases in bold, use them in the sentences of your own:
- •II. Discuss the following questions:
- •IV. Write five or six summary statements about what you have just read. Then in groups share what has been written. Writing
- •I. Write the essay “1917-1924 – Utopian dreams that could (not) come true.” summing-up assignment
- •Essential vocabulary
II. Discuss the following questions:
What was Lenin’s goal when he made it back to Russia from exile in Switzerland in April?
Why could the Bolsheviks exploit the deteriorating conditions in the spring and fall to gain support among the disaffected workers and soldiers in and around Petrograd? And what were these “deteriorating conditions”?
Why did Lenin and Trotsky formed a powerful historic partnership?
Why did the government release Bolshevik leaders from prison and even supplied arms to the party’s militia, the Red Guards?
Why did it take Lenin so long to convince his colleagues to make a grab for power?
How did the November coup go? What were the results of it?
III. Report: Find additional information about a) Leon Trotsky or b) Lavr Kornilov and make up a report about one of them. How are they evaluated by contemporary historians?
(2) Securing Bolshevik Power
I. Scan the text to get general understanding of it. Suggest English equivalents in the appropriate form for the words given in brackets:
The Bolsheviks moved quickly and ruthlessly to (закрепить; обезопасить) power. On November 8 they issued two decrees that millions of Russians had been waiting to hear. The Decree on Peace called for immediate (переговоры) to end the war and announced that the Bolsheviks were prepared to (подписать) a separate peace with Germany if the Western Allies chose to continue fighting. When the Allies did not follow suit, the Bolsheviks signed their separate peace with Germany, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in March 1918.
The Decree on Land (аннулировать) all private property ownership of land and called for all (земля, пригодная для обработки) to be transferred to the peasantry. Essentially, it legalized the seizures of land by the peasantry that had been taking place, often violently, in many (сельский) areas for several months. Far more problematic for many Russians, the Bolsheviks also announced their new government, the Council of People’s Commissars, or Sovnarkom, which included only Bolsheviks. This immediately (будить, пробуждать) a storm; most Russians active in political life assumed that any new government would include several parties and be subject to the will of the people through elections. They correctly saw the new regime as laying the foundations for a one-party (диктатура), something virtually everyone opposed. Most Russians, whatever their political views, did not want to exchange the czarist autocracy for another form of dictatorship.
The months of November and December made it clear that this was precisely what the Bolsheviks intended. Within a day of announcing their new government, they (запрещать) the nonsocialist press. In the following weeks they won control of Russia’s (главный, крупный) cities, although in Moscow it took 10 days of hard fighting. In December they set up “revolutionary tribunals” to suppress opponents of the regime and (объявлять вне закона) the Cadet (Constitutional Democrat) Party, labeling its leaders “enemies of the people.” This mark of Cain would come back to (неотступно преследовать) and destroy many of those same Bolsheviks after Lenin’s death when Joseph Stalin led the party. On December 20 the Bolsheviks raised the Russian secret police from its grave under the name of the Cheka, the “Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage.”
The new regime did not dare stop the elections for the Constituent Assembly, which stood as the (исполнение, осуществление) of a generations-old dream. The elections, reasonably free despite Bolshevik efforts at (запугивание; угроза), were held in late November, with the Bolsheviks finishing a poor second to the SRs, who won a solid plurality (41 percent to the Bolshevik total of 24 percent). Lenin had no intention of listening to the will of the people as expressed in the first national election in Russia’s history. The Bolsheviks allowed the Constituent Assembly to meet for exactly one day, January 18, 1918, before closing it down by force, one (мера) in an expanding policy of repression. In April the Cheka arrested hundreds of anarchists. In June 1918 the Bolsheviks (исключать) the Mensheviks and the SRs from the country’s soviets. The stage was now fully set for (гражданская война).