Communism

Propaganda through newspapers, radios, tvs, posters and through people threatening other people, burning books (WW2)

after WW1 is when most Americans were afraid it would spread to their own soil and it got worse after WW2, so some might argue it went on until the Cold War was over. some people are still scared of all types of communism today.

The "Bolshevik Revolution" was more particularly known as the "October Revolution" in 1917. It is called this, because there had been two revolutions in Russia in 1917, one in February (called the February Revolution) and one in October (called the October Revolution) in order to distinguish one from the other.

The Bolshevik Revolution is the one which overthrew the Provisional Government of Russia and put Lenin and the Bolshevik Party (later renamed Communist Party) in power. The February Revolution is the one which forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate the throne.

Lenin's promise to the people of Russia was "Peace! Land! Bread!" By 1917 the Russian people were ready for a change in government because Tsar Nicholas II's government simply no longer worked. "Peace, Land, Bread" meant three basic desires of the Russian people. Peace meant ending Russian involvement in World War I. Incompetence in the army led to huge losses in life. Land meant the abolition of private property and a redistribution of land. Bread meant an end to widespread shortages of basic foods. The Tsarist rule in Russia had already been ended in the February Revolution, but the problems that led to that revolution persisted even with the new government. In three words, Lenin captured the needs of the Russian people to the extent that they were willing to follow him in setting up another government.

With that said, the new Provisional government had little time to change Russian society. Lenin changed it with a dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. It was not a dictatorship of the working class.

Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Stalin among many others, for the Bolsheviks which was the October revolution, or November depending on which Russian calendar is used.

Alexander Kerensky, among others, for the Provisional Government. Tsar Nicholas II was not part of this revolution at all since he had been put out of power eight months earlier in the first part of the Russian Revolution, the February Revolution.

The cultural revolution

the Russian revolution was both good and bad, as is the case with most communist uprisings...although the old autocracy that the czars had was toppled and the people enjoyed a few years of prosperity under the communist regime, unfortunately it didnt work for long. due to the clunky nature of the governments system many people starved, in some cases stooping to cannibalism to survive. add to this the fact that anyone who spoke out against the regime were shipped off to siberia to cut trees down, and the cold war and its easy to see why it all turned to custard.

Stalin's body was laid in state in the House of Trade Unions in Moscow.

Click on the related links section indicated below and you will see a picture of him in state. You have to scroll down almost to the end.

"If it was necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism," Lenin wrote. So as competition on the national level was reduced through mergers, bankruptcies and the tendency toward monopoly, it became increasingly ferocious internationally. Business required the organized power and resources of the state to secure their interests.

Lenin believed that total repression of dissenting opinion as well as saturation with socialist propaganda were necessary for a socialist revolution in Russia to be successful. He realized that the Russian Revolutions of 1917, especially the Bolshevik Revolution of October, were not true Marxian revolutions and that therefor the time was not ripe for Marxian socialism and eventually communism to take root. Marx believed that a society had to go through a period of industrialized capitalism to create the conflicting social classes of the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Once that occurred, the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie. It would be a revolution by a class of people who were ready to embrace the socialist lifestyle.

This did not happen with Lenin's revolution. His was a political revolution in which his Bolshevik party, a minority political party, used military force to take over a weak government and seize power. It was not a revolution by an entire class of people. Most Russians, even socialists, were opposed to Lenin. Lenin put highly repressive measures in place to stifle all political dissent so that the people would not be convinced to overthrow the Bolshevik regime. The Russian peasants had no idea of being part of a social class who were now ready for a socialist lifestyle. To convince them otherwise, the peasants needed to be indoctrinated into that lifestyle by constant socialist propaganda that would create the necessary class consciousness for even the peasants to acquiesce to a new socialist order.

When the US was forming, communism did not exist. The idea didn't come around till the 19th century under Karl Marx. The reason the US did not convert is argued but most people agree it is because of the failure of communism in Russia.

Lenin established the Soviet Union. After taking over Russia he entered into a treaty with Ukraine, Belorussia and the Transcaucasus Federation (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) to join together as one nation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The United states confronted Communism in East Asia after the Korean War with fear that communism would be intertwined to other countries. They entered the Korean Conflict shortly after world war 2.

Lenin did away with "war communism" in favor of his "New Economic Policy", which permitted some aspects of capitalism in small businesses and agriculture while retaining the rest of the economy under government control.

Hitler viewed Communism as a Jewish plot. He connected the two. His war on Jews was a war on Communism, and his invasion of the USSR was an extension of his war on Jews.

There's alot of people who say "Hitler might have won WW2 if he hadn't invaded Russia". I disagree. But it certainly hurt his cause. The problem with the statement though is that when you presume Hitler not invade Russia you change the fundamental ideology and character of the man. His invasion was always part of the plan. He announced it years earlier in Mein Kampf.

And Stalin read Mein Kampf. He knew Hitler would attack...but he wrongly assumed Hitler would wait until the war in the west was done. Stalin had just purged his generals and was in the middle of a military rebuilding project that he THOUGHT he had 2-3 years to complete when Hitler attacked.

from WW1 till 1990 Armenia was one of the soviet union countries but since 1990 it has been a non socialist nor communist country.

Lenin had a reputation for revolutionary activities especially after his older brother was executed for attempting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. As time went on he got more and more active as a revolutionary so it expelled him.

communism

Bolshevism and/or Leninism combines the ideas of Marx and Lenin although Lenin has changed some of Marx's ideas around. Thus there is a distinction between Bolshevism/Leninism and Marxism.

Vladimir Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks during the "soviet revolution", although technically it is not called the soviet revolution, but the Russian Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet Union had not come into being until 1922.

Communism has been established terribly. While designed as a future utopia where government will eventually cease to exist, communist states usually turn into authoritarian or even totalitarian states. The less democracy in a country, the more poverty. This is because freedoms are dismantled, citizens usually pay high taxes, jobs have lower pay for "fairness", etc.

A "competition" for power ensued after Lenin's death. At first, Russia was ruled by a triumvirate of Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev. The competition for power began among Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Zinoviev and Stalin. After some political manipulations Trotsky was made to leave USSR by Stalin and his allies Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Thereafter, Stalin allied himself with Bukharin and eliminated Zinoviev. Once Zinoviev was gone, Stalin abandoned Bukharin and he was forced out of the Communist Party as well. Stalin wound up with the whole power of the Communist Party in his hands.

both adhere to the principle that the resources of the economy should be collectively owned by the public and controlled by a central organization